-GEOGRAPHY 



115 



such men as may be wanted in war have, perforce, been put to train in 

 Hampshire. 



We can now summarise the results of our later period, and it will be as 

 well to make a comparative table, and show things for the two periods 

 side by side. 



Triangulation (or good control) 

 (a) Geodetic survey 



(b) Arc of 30th meridian 



(c) Boundary Commission 



1900-13. 



Geodetic sur- 

 vey of South 

 Africa. 



2,050 miles. 

 10,000 miles. 



1922-35. 



Geodetic sur- 

 vey of Nigeria 

 and part of the 

 Gold Coast. 

 360 miles. 



3,500 miles. 



Published Topographical Maps 



Resulting from reliable 

 survey and including 

 boundary commissions 

 and local surveys . . 480, 000 sq. miles. 170,000 sq. miles. 



Note. — During the later period our African responsibilities had grown 

 by no less than 743,000 square miles. 



The problem of mapping Africa is not being tackled in fact. Where 

 is the machinery at fault ? The Geographical Section has not been idle. 

 It has inaugurated periodical conferences of the survey officers of the 

 empire, and most useful they are. It has started the Empire Survey 

 Review, which is, perhaps, the best survey periodical in the world. It 

 inspired the design and manufacture of that best of all theodolites, made 

 by Cook, Troughton & Siemens, and called the ' Tavistock.' It has given 

 ready help on all technical questions. The Colonial Surveyors themselves 

 have realised a complete fusion between the various aspects of their work. 

 Such powder as they have in the magazine is dry. It is the trust in higher 

 beings which has failed. 



The fault is that public opinion, with many urgent matters to consider, 

 is as slow to grasp the position in Africa as it was to do so in Great Britain, 

 and there is no force, in beHng, strong in proportion as the matter is urgent, 

 to call attention to the ultimate economy of starting a definite and pro- 

 gressive programme. In Africa to-day, as in England yesterday, the 

 public suffers because there is no reliable map on which to work. Every 

 private interest and every government department must fend for itself. 

 Lack of maps, or unorganised and piecemeal mapping, amount to the 

 same thing in this particular. They cause a heavy financial burden to 

 fall on the whole community. 



There are some generalisations which experience allows us to make. 

 Thus, just as history cannot be divorced from geography, so neither can 



