252 National Geographic Magazine. 
reclamation and improvement of waste lands, and of land from 
the sea; transactions affecting land as between landlord and 
tenant ; statistical surveys, the setting out and adjustment of 
parochial and other public boundaries and so forth. 
It has been amply proved on the best evidence that a map, 
with levels, on a scale of something like twenty-five inches to one 
mile is the smallest which can properly fulfill all these require- 
ments. 
In the organization and equipment of the Ordnance Survey, as 
it exists to-day, no pains are spared to secure the utmost precision 
and economy in its methods of field work and publication. 
After more than a century of development and the completion 
of the cadastral map, let it not be supposed that its mission is at 
an end, for it is proposed to make a complete revision of all the 
cadastral work at least once every twenty years. 
This is rendered necessary by the constant changes in property 
boundaries, and the growth of population—which may be gathered 
from the fact that the city of London increases in population at 
the rate of about 50,000 a year, and that eighty or more miles 
of new streets are added in the same time. 
UL, 
The Ordnance Survey of Great Britain as it exists to-day is a 
remarkable Publishing Bureau, from whose presses are given the 
most elaborate and accurate series of maps which any country 
possesses. 
Maps not alone confined to the representation of the physical 
features of the country, but containing every detail of interest or 
value for civil or military purposes. | 
It has justly gained the commendation of the French that it is 
“a work without precedent, and should be taken as a model by all 
civilized nations.” 
The principal scales of publication adopted by the Ordnance 
Survey are: (1) A general map on the scale of one mile to one 
inch. (2) County plans on the scale of six inches to one mile. 
(3) Cadastral or Parish plans for the whole country on the scale 
of ssgy or about 254 inches to one mile, on which one square 
inch on the plan represents an area of one acre. (4) For towns 
of over 4000 inhabitants a scale of 54, of actual length on the 
ground or 1036 feet to one mile. 
