162 MAPS AND THEIR MAKERS 



blue and a light blue tint, with moraines in brown. Relief 

 is further emphasized by shading in a neutral tint or blue-grey 

 put in by the draughtsman, not by photography as in France. 

 The general effect is most expressive, largely due to the careful 

 rock drawing. The other details have not been allowed to 

 dominate the relief, the green undertone of the woods, for 

 example, is light, and the conventional signs are neatly drawn. 

 A new series on the scale of 1 : 20,000 is also in preparation. 

 When the two are complete, Switzerland will be unrivalled in 

 its standard of national cartography. 



In the United States, there is no single official mapping 

 authority as in Great Britain. The U.S. Geological Survey is 

 now the chief agency for topographical mapping, but a number 

 of others produce maps and charts for special purposes. For 

 most of the nineteenth centur}^ the principal demand, as the 

 tide of migrants flowed westwards, was for the rapid survey of the 

 vast tracts of land to facilitate settlement. From 1776, this was 

 carried out for the central government by the General Land 

 Office. At the same time, individual States produced small-scale 

 maps of their areas, generally of no great order of accuracy. 



More precise surveys were gradually carried out by other 

 bodies. The Coast Survey (now the Coast and Geodetic Survey) 

 was established in 1807, but accomplished little for its first 

 thirty years. In addition to its chief task of charting the coasts 

 and mapping contiguous land areas, it is responsible for the 

 basic network of triangulation and levelling used in other 

 surveys. The Corps of Topographical Engineers, founded a few 

 years later, was at first largely engaged in meeting military 

 requirements and in exploration, but was afterwards employed 

 in tasks connected with the improvement of rivers and harbours, 

 in the survey of the northern lakes and in boundary work. It also 

 carried out much survey in the territories west of the Rocky 

 Mountains around the middle of the century. In 1879, to co- 

 ordinate this work, all surveys, geological and topographical, 

 west of the 100th meridian were entrusted to the newly 

 established Geological Survey, whose sphere of activity was 

 eventually extended over the whole country. It is now respon- 

 sible for eighty per cent of the topographical survey performed 

 by government agencies. 



