5i J. Waterliouse — The Application of Pliotography [No. 2, 



With the invention of lithography, a new impetus was given to 

 cartography by the comparative ease with which maps could be produced 

 and multiplied by direct drawing or transfer on stone. The young art was, 

 however, scarcely out of its cradle when Joseph Nicephore Niepce, of Cha- 

 lons-sur-Saone, experimenting unsuccessfully in endeavouring to find a sub- 

 stitute for lithographic stone, conceived the happy idea" of obtaining images 

 on metal plates by the sole agency of light upon thin films of asphaltum 

 or bitumen of Judsea — and thus produced the first permanent photographs 

 by a method of heliographic engraving, which, with a few modifications, 

 still serves to produce excellent results ; and it is worthy of remark in con- 

 nection with our subject that Niepce's first essays were in reproducing 

 engravings. 



Since these first essays of Niepce, the idea of superseding the slow 

 and laborious hand-work of the lithographic draftsman and engraver by the 

 quicker, cheaper and more accurate processes of photography, has been 

 steadily kept in view, and various modes of engraving, both for copper- plate 

 and surface-printing, and of lithography by the aid of photography, as 

 well as other special photo-mechanical processes, have been introduced from 

 time to time with more or less success, till at the present time these 

 methods have taken a high and important position among the graphic 

 arts, and as they steadily progress towards perfection, are rapidly extending 

 their artistic, scientific and industrial applications. 



The attention of cartographers was very soon drawn to the advantages 

 that might be gained by the employment of photography for the reproduc- 

 tion of maps and plans, but for some time progress in this direction was 

 hindered by the difficulty of obtaining accurate images, free from the dis- 

 tortions caused by imperfect construction of the photographic lenses then 

 employed. The first serious attempt to carry out the method practically 

 appears to have been made, in 1855, by Colonel Sir Henry James, B. E., 

 Director of the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain and Ireland, with the 

 object of obtaining accurate reductions from the large-scale surveys more 

 expeditiousl}^ and with more economy than could be done by means of the 

 pantograph. 



The result proved incontestably the great value of photography for 

 this purpose and the enormous saving in time and money that could be 

 effected by its use. The possibility of producing absolutely accurate pho- 

 tographic reductions was questioned in Parliament, but Sir Henry James 

 satisfactorily showed that the employment of photography produced reduc- 

 tions more accurate than could be obtained by any method previously in 

 use ; that the maximum amount of error could scarcely be perceived, and was 

 much within the limit of the expansion and contraction of paper under 

 ordinary atmospheric changes — which was all that could be desired. 



