440 Professor W. W. Watts— 



combined under one management, and nowhere else are the topo- 

 graphic results more accurate and satisfactory. Landscape is traced 

 back to its ultimate source, and consequently sketched in with more 

 feeling for the country and greater accuracy of knowledge than 

 would otherwise be possible. Geologists were among the first to 

 cry out for increasing accuracy and detail in our Government maps, 

 and they have consistently made the utmost use of the best of 

 these maps as fast as they appeared. With the publication of each 

 type of map, hachured, contoured, six-inch, twenty-five inch, the 

 value and accuracy of geological mapping have advanced step by 

 step. Wherever the topography is better delineated than usual the 

 facilities are greater for accurate geological work, and the best 

 geological maps, and those in greatest demand, are always those 

 based on the most minute and detailed topographic work. On the 

 other hand, geologists are training up a class of men who can read 

 and interpret the inner meaning of these maps, and make the fullest 

 use of the splendid facilities given by the minute accuracy of the 

 ordnance work. 



Lord Roberts has recently complained that \h.Q cadets at Woolwich 

 are unable to read and interpret maps, and he "strongly advised 

 them to set about improving themselves in this respect, or they 

 would find themselves heavily handicapped in the future." I believe 

 that the only training in this subject before entering the Eoyal 

 Military Academy and the Eoyal Military College has been that 

 given to those candidates who have taken up geology for their 

 entrance examination. By encouraging these students to study and 

 draw maps and sections of their own districts, and to explain and 

 draw sections across geological maps generally, thus accounting for 

 surface-features, the examiners have compelled this small group of 

 candidates to see deeper into a map than ordinary people. If only 

 this training had been encouraged and advanced and made use of 

 later, the Commander - in - Chief would have had no cause of 

 complaint with regard to these particular men. Looking at a map 

 is one thing ; working at it, seeing into it, and getting out of it 

 what is wanted from the vast mass of information crammed into it, 

 is quite another ; and geology is the very best and perhaps the 

 only means of compelling such a close study of maps as to enable 

 students to seize upon the salient features of a country from a map 

 as quickly and accurately as if the country itself were spread out 

 before them. The geologist is compelled to work out and classify 

 for himself the features he observes on his maps, such as scarps and 

 terraces, crags and waterfalls, streams and gorges, passes and ridges, 

 the run of the roads, canals, and railways, the nature and accessibility 

 of the coast, and all those features which make the difference between 

 an easy-going and a difficult country. When he has worked his way 

 over a map in this fashion that map becomes to him a real and 

 telling picture of the country itself. 



Experience, bitter experience, in South Africa has shown the 

 necessity not only for good maps and map-reading, but for that 

 which is the most priceless possession alike of the best field geologists 



