E.— GEOGRAPHY 103 



Roads mean adjustments of property and administration and we had the 

 warnings of the waste of two millions on the poor and local surveys of the 

 tithe maps ; and the demands of legal and administration authorities 

 which doubled the survey of 1880. It is as if an elderly gentleman, 

 overstout for his shabby suit, reluctantly ordered another from his tailor 

 with strict injunctions to use a yard less material. In this particular, the 

 revision of ordnance maps and plans of Great Britain, things look like 

 improving. The Ordnance Survey, tucked away in that onetime asylum 

 in Southampton, keeps on doing its best, and its difficulties are, at last, 

 being considered. None the less all British geographers have a duty in 

 thi; matter. We ought to see that our house is kept in order, and that 

 the staff of the Ordnance Surevy is not ha'ved jus" when the changes of 

 development are doubled. 



We must have the maps, indeed, not only for what they show, but for 

 what they can be made to show. Against the black background of map 

 detail any subject can be illustrated in colour. There is no need to talk 

 distribution maps to an audience of geographers, yet it is astonishing how 

 little has been done. Geology was the first science to map itself, and the 

 Ordnance Survey has done much for the mapping of archaeology and 

 history. Within limits it is perhaps easiest for that department to pro- 

 vide the appropriate and contemporary outline. A population map, 

 perhaps only in tentative form, illustrates the 193 1 census. It seems to 

 me important that distribution maps for subjects of first-rate national 

 importance should be made and revised at stated intervals so that, in 

 the future, comparisons may be based on unimpeachable evidence, and 

 tendencies identified and studied. Intensive studies of small areas are 

 the realm of geographers themselves. They can be well illustrated in black 

 and white, and the records will be found in geographical magazines. But 

 there is always need of a more general and wider stretching picture. It 

 is not a necessity that every geographer should be word perfect on land 

 utilisation in Glen Clova, but it is a necessity that he should be well aware 

 of the differences of population density in Great Britain. Here we come 

 back to a national field, and one into which we are just entering. 



It may be of interest to see what the national survey has done in the 

 question by recording the genesis of some of our editions. In the first in- 

 stance the Geological Survey started as the ' Ordnance Geological Survey.' 

 The 10-mile map began as a map for the River Commissioners. The J-inch 

 map was first produced at a joint call of archaeologists, geologists and 

 soldiers, the i/M to answer a request from an international assemb'y of 

 geographers. Physical editions at various scales have been made at the 

 request of British geographers. Population maps were made to help 

 in the delimitation of interstate boundaries, and, at the special request of 

 this section, to illustrate the 1931 census. Archaeological and historical 

 maps are a case of spontaneous combustion, and are, as a matter of fact, 

 a by-product of the mapping of the relevant sites, which is a normal 

 function of the Ordnance Survey. 



On the whole, in Great Britain, the situation is none so bad as far as 

 the geographer is concerned. Municipal administration, town and regional 



