164 MAPS AND THEIR MAKERS 



achieved for twenty years, when the British government 

 invited foreign delegates to a conference in London, at which 

 the 'Carte internationale du Monde au MilHonieme' was 

 initiated on an approved system. The projection is a modified 

 polyconic, which allows adjoining sheets to be fitted together, 

 each covering 4° of latitude, and 6° of longitude, though nearer 

 the Poles than latitude 60° two sheets may be combined. Relief 

 is by contours, generally at 100-metre intervals, and layer 

 colouring, with shading for minor features, according to an 

 approved pattern. Each national survey is responsible for the 

 sheets covering its own territory, and names are given in the 

 local form. 



From the beginning the project encountered difficulties. 

 It is clearly almost impossible to devise a scheme of contour 

 intervals and layer colouring which will depict satisfactorily 

 all kinds of topography, from the Himalaya and the plateau of 

 southern Africa to the English Plain, and in practice consider- 

 able latitude in the selection of contours had to be allowed. 

 Incidentally, the original 'gamme', or scale of tints for the 

 layer colouring, produced by the War Office was "such a 

 masterpiece of colour printing that no one has been really 

 successful in copying it".^ The main impediment to progress, 

 however, was the distribution of responsibility among many 

 independent bodies, influenced by national considerations, 

 and the consequent absence of a strong central body to promote 

 uniformity, and to make the published sheets easily procurable. 

 By the outbreak of war in 1939, of the approximate total of 

 975 sheets required to cover the land surface, 405 had been 

 published, but of these only 232 conformed to the international 

 pattern. It was held by some that there was insufficient material 

 available to map all countries on this scale, and partly for this 

 reason the Geographical Section, General Staff, between 

 1919 and 1939, produced series of maps such as Africa, 1:2 

 Million, and Asia 1 : 4 Million. 



If it has not been a complete success, it has had some 

 useful results. The sheet lines have been fairly widely adopted 

 as the framework for national series on larger scales, thus 



^Hinks, A. R., Geogr. Jfourn., 94, 1939, 404. 



