no SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



petual measurements along the ground, and in a fresh azimuth for every 

 field or homestead ; that overlapping effort which, in Great Britain ' fell 

 as a heavy burden upon the whole community ' before the days of the 

 Ordnance Survey, had to be eliminated. There seems to be something 

 fatally soporific about a general truth to which everybody can assent 

 'in principle, but in respect of which no one feels compelled to get 

 busy at once. How many political illustrations have we not had lately 

 of this curious fact ! It will be best to give a concrete illustration 

 of what triangulation does do. In Northern Nigeria lies that Bauchi 

 Plateau inhabited by pagans and tin-miners, which has seen so 

 much alienation of land for mining concessions, and from which so 

 much of the world's tin has come. Very early in the development of 

 Northern Nigeria it became a problem how to keep pace with applica- 

 tions. A party of Royal Engineer officers and men was called for. A 

 hasty triangulation was made and the arrears were caught up with. But 

 then came the war. The party was recalled. The officer who had made, 

 and computed, the triangulation was killed, and his records were lost in 

 the confusion of the times. After the war the rush started again. Appli- 

 cations were now dealt with in the ancestral fashion of property surveying. 

 Each concession was a problem all of its own. Measures were dupli- 

 cated, and arrears began to mount up. At last another imperial party 

 was borrowed. A good and permanently marked triangulation was 

 extended from the growing primary triangulation of the colony. Arrears 

 were promptly overtaken, and now each fresh concession can be surveyed 

 at quarter the time and cost. 



In pursuance of the policy of amalgamating the two sides of survey the 

 War Office, which, in 1913, had 100 Royal Engineer officers on survey 

 duty, lent many officers and men to the Colonial Survey Departments. 

 In West Africa activity was general. In Kenya and Uganda a really good 

 triangulation was extended from the Boundary Chains, and a great deal 

 of really sound mapping was finished at i-in. and £-in. scales. In some 

 cases the Colonial Survey Department was put under a Royal Engineer, 

 in others imperial parties were lent to the Surveyor- General to get on 

 with the mapping and triangulation. Whilst these activities were in 

 progress an imperial party, fresh from the boundary between Uganda 

 and the Belgian Congo, started to measure a portion of Gill's arc along 

 the 30th meridian in Uganda. Finally a complete tour of inspection 

 was carried out by the late General Hills, visiting each survey in turn, 

 and bringing coherence into the aims, and methods, of the various 

 departments. 



Having now considered a period of thirteen years (1900-19 13) it will 

 be as well to recapitulate the achievements. 



Period 1900-1913 (Africa only). 



Triangulation (or astronomical or traverse control). 

 (a) The completion of the geodetic survey of South Africa. 



