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THE 
 
 ~ t O 
 
 GEODESY OF BRITAIN; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE ORDNANCE SURVEY 
 
 OF 
 
 ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND: 
 
 ITS HISTORY AND PROGRESS, SCALES AND CHANGES ; THE PRINCIPAL PURPOSES 
 WHICH IT OUGHT TO SUBSERVE; THE MODE IN WHICH IT MAY 
 SUBSERVE THEM ; AND THE DETERMINATION WHICH THE 
 LEGISLATURE SHOULD COME TO IN REFERENCE TO 
 ITS FINAL COMPLETION. 
 
 IN A LETTER 
 
 TO 
 
 A SCOTTISH LAIRD AND IMPERIAL M.P. 
 
 FROM 
 
 ADELOS. 
 
 “ He was aware that a popular pamphlet might sometimes be of as much service as a 
 victory in the field.”— Macaulay on William III. and Burnet. 
 
 “ Thus stands the case in Scotland.” 
 
 “ In England, unfortunately, things have been very different ”—not what are desired. 
 
 “ The cause of Ireland is tried along with that of Scotland.”— Malacei Malagrowther. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PARTRIDGE & CO., 34, PATERN.OSTER ROW. 
 
 1859 . 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 VH-A 
 
 /\ Ct 3 
 
 0 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Royal Commission Report and Present State of Ordnance 
 
 Survey.1 
 
 II. History of Ordnance Survey.16 
 
 III. Scales of Plans and Maps.34 
 
 IY. Objects of a National Survey ...... 45 
 
 I. ENGINEERING WORKS .45 
 
 1. Military Plans and Maps . . . 45 
 
 2. Hydrographical Charts.46 
 
 3. Geological and Mineral Survey .... 49 
 
 4. Railways.52 
 
 5. Canals and Roads.52 
 
 6. Drainage.53 
 
 II. TRANSFER OF REAL PROPERTY. 53 
 
 III. REGISTRATION AND IDENTITY OF ESTATES . . .53 
 
 IV. VALUATION FOR FISCAL PURPOSES .... 59 
 
 V. TRANSACTIONS WITH TENANTS .61 
 
 VI. IMPROVEMENT OF ESTATES ...... 61 
 
 VII. ADJUSTMENT OF CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL BOUNDARIES . 62 
 
 VIII. AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS. 63 
 
 V. Recommendations and Suggestions for Consideration of 
 the Legislature, in sanctioning the System and Pro¬ 
 cedure FOR CARRYING OUT THESE OBJECTS . . . .68 
 
 Postscript. 71 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 https://archive.org/details/geodesyofbritainOOadel 
 
THE GEODESY OF BRITAIN. 
 
 I,—IlOYAL COMMISSION, REPORT, AND PRESENT STATE 
 OF THE ORDNANCE SURVEY. 
 
 I send you the two latest Blue Books on the Ordnance Survey, with 
 my notes written on the margin, the one dated “ May 6th, 1856, Report 
 from Commons’ Committee on Ordnance Survey of Scotlandthe other 
 dated “ 20th May, 1858, Report of the Ordnance Royal Commission,” 
 appointed on the motion in the Lords after the adverse vote on the Ord¬ 
 nance Estimates in the Commons, on the 18th June, 1857, for striking off 
 £36,000, carried by a majority of 172 to 162. 
 
 These will afford you all the information you desire on the subject; 
 and the latter will undeceive you in the expectations you, in common with 
 other Highland proprietors, have formed of obtaining minute property 
 surveys and plans at the expense of the Government; for you will observe 
 that, by the second recommendation of the Commissioners, while the 
 cultivated districts of the unsurveyed portions, both of England and the 
 Lowlands of Scotland, are to he completed and published both on the 
 25-inch and six-inch scales, the Highlands are to be surveyed for the 
 one-inch scale only. 
 
 To prevent any doubt as to what is meant by the “ Highlands of 
 Scotland ,” the Commissioners furnish a map, with the large and small 
 scale boundary distinctly marked all along the east coast. No part of the 
 west coast is included, except a small oasis somewhere about Assynt, in 
 Sutherland. This is an interesting geological district, and the exception 
 in its favour may be due to that, and might lead to the surmise that Sir 
 Roderick Impey Murchison was the author of this arbitrary line of division, 
 was there not greater reason to suspect Sir C. Trevelyan. He knows 
 well “ the gradually decreasing belt of cultivated land which runs up by 
 Easter Ross into Sutherland,” and is qualified to be Director-General of 
 the survey, from the first measurement of a base line till its completion 
 for the engraver ; and has had more to do with its details (if not also with 
 the changes which have caused delay) than the Lords of the Treasury 
 may give him credit for. At all events, it cannot be fathered on Colonel 
 James, who, it is presumed, would resign his office sooner than consent to 
 leave unsurveyed (and he would so regard any part done on less than the 
 largest scale) so many thousands of acres, equally fertile with the best of 
 Fife, though not so rich in mineral wealth; nor is it likely that he would 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 do in 1858 what he declared, in 1856, to be impossible—adding, that he 
 “ would not like to attempt it.” 
 
 Curiously enough, this arbitrary line leaves out all the Highland clan 
 districts (as if the descendants of the old rebellious chiefs had no right to 
 have their estates surveyed), and very nearly traces the boundary of the 
 English and Gaelic languages, as they are the medium of communication 
 at the present day among the aborigines. You will scarcely believe, 
 without referring to the map (Plate V.), how much of what we consider 
 eastern, and even southern counties, is left out by this arbitrary recom¬ 
 mendation, and how very little of the northern counties the Royal Com¬ 
 mission consider worthy of being laid down on the large-plan scale. 
 Argyll, and of course all the Islands and Highlands on the west coast, 
 are entirely excluded. Commencing at the Clyde, the large-scale line 
 takes in only about a fourth of Dumbarton, a third of Stirling, and not 
 one fifth of Perthshire. It divides Forfar into two equal portions; but 
 embraces nearly the whole of Kincardine. Proceeding northwards, Aber¬ 
 deen, which sends more fat cattle to the London market than any two 
 other counties in England or Scotland, is not considered worthy of having 
 so much as the half of its area surveyed; and Banff is similarly dealt 
 with. Almost the whole of Elgin, or Moray, and the half of Nairn, as 
 also of Caithness, are to be on the large scale. But what of the three 
 extensive intervening counties ? Why, Inverness, the northern capital 
 (though not found to be entitled to the name of “ city,” as Elgin has 
 recently been), is of course to be laid down on the town scale for sanitary 
 purposes; but of the county, the largest in the kingdom, nothing beyond 
 this seems to be marked. Ross-shire, which produces the finest Scotch 
 wheat, has only its “ Black Isle ” (as it is called, though only a peninsula, 
 and one of the fairest portions of the county), and “ Tarbat Point ” 
 included; and Sutherland, only, perhaps, because it can boast of having 
 the finest castle north of the Tweed, a small bit in the neighbourhood of 
 Dunrobin, in addition to the mineral spec at Assynt. As to your own 
 individual case, so far as I can judge, you will have one-third on the large 
 or plan scale, and that the portion of which you already possess a survey, 
 and two-thirds, of which I believe you have no plan, on the one-inch ; and 
 even this when, and only when, it pleases Colonel James to carry his 
 operations so far north. I know you will be disappointed at this, as will 
 also many of your neighbours, who have been so long looking forward to 
 the expected boon, and who, by deferring a private survey in expectation 
 of the Ordnance one, have lost more than half the benefit they would have 
 derived if they had obtained it before commencing their improvements. 
 
 I must endeavour to console you ; and the most effectual way of doing 
 this will be to convince you that you had no right to obtain any such 
 private advantage at the public expense; and that even if you obtained it 
 (as Sir James Matheson has done, or as the southern proprietors are 
 now doing, with greater minuteness and at less cost), all the objects and 
 purposes of a private survey would not be fully satisfied. You would still 
 require to employ a local land-surveyor, if not to calculate the 
 areas of the fields (the cost of “ casting up ” the contents is not included 
 in the detailed estimate), at least to adapt Colonel James’s beautiful and 
 
3 
 
 minute delineations to the existing state of possession, and to render them 
 available for the ends you have in view in re-modelling and improving 
 your estate; so that, if fully considered, the saving to any individual pro¬ 
 prietor, by having provided to his hand the Ordnance survey on its largest 
 scale, is very trivial. I assume, of course, that private surveys are care¬ 
 fully and accurately made; and there is certainly nothing to prevent their 
 being so, if proprietors will consent to pay one-half the rates which the 
 Ordnance survey costs the country, and if Colonel James will provide 
 the private surveyors, as he does his own assistants, with the lengths and 
 bearings of his “ tertiary” triangulation, or even of those of from five to 
 ten miles, which he calls the “ secondary.” Indeed, these, if not pub¬ 
 lished, ought to be available, on application, to all who choose to use them, 
 either for general scientific objects, or for any private purpose, on the prin¬ 
 ciple, though not according to all the details, suggested by Mr. Sopwith. 
 
 The triangulation may be assumed to be perfect according to our present 
 notion of scientific perfection; and there is little doubt that the details 
 generally are as carefully and correctly executed as the minute beauty of 
 the finished published plans and maps, on all the different scales, would 
 warrant us to expect. Considering that every department is conducted 
 almost without regard to expense, wherever accuracy is in any degree 
 involved, and that the large staff are paid according to time, and not 
 extent or amount of work accomplished (until lately that piece-work has 
 been attempted, on the suggestion of the Treasury, under most rigid sur¬ 
 veillance), it would be disgraceful were it otherwise. One shilling an acre 
 affords handsome pay to an expert surveyor; and because he is satisfied 
 with half the amount for surveying 1000 acres, and little more than a 
 fourth of it for a more considerable extent, it is scarcely fair to the pro¬ 
 fession to take it for granted (as members of the Committee and of the 
 Commission, as well as witnesses, seem to do) that their surveys are care¬ 
 lessly and inaccurately performed. Private surveys may be obtained at 
 these charges from respectable and eminent surveyors, who are entitled to 
 as much credit for conscientiousness and for knowledge, both scientific and 
 practical, as the able superintendent of the Ordnance survey himself, while 
 not a few can lay claim to greater experience. 
 
 Neither Colonel Dawson nor Colonel James can do everything with 
 their own hands, and it is questionable whether either has it in his 
 power to watch over the details as every responsible private sur¬ 
 veyor is compelled to do. Both have to deal with instruments, the 
 perfection of which is—not that they retain the harmony of all their parts 
 received from their maker—but that when they get into disorder, like a 
 musical one out of tune, their construction admits of adjustment in the 
 hands of a skilful operator—with matter which is not always pliant to the 
 will, and with mind which must be clothed with vulgar matter. Besides 
 dead instruments they require to use living assistants, on whose conduct 
 and probity they must place reliance—and are no others to be trusted 
 than those of the Ordnance training ? 
 
 It is ungenerous in Colonel James to ask the question, “ Who would be 
 guided by plans which any private person made ?” He tells us that he 
 employs boys, on the principle of economy, to make the tracing which is to 
 
 b 2 
 
4 
 
 be transferred to the zinc plates and lithographic stones, leaving the 
 writing and artistic work to be done by expert hands. 
 
 This is a more honest than consistent confession, which a retaliating 
 surveyor might construe to mean, “We leave the real work, the lines 
 which constitute the survey, and which everyone will credit as coming 
 from us, and which nobody will take the trouble to test, to be done by 
 inexperienced hands, but that of which all can judge we take care to have 
 nicely executed by tasteful artists.” He also acknowledges that a party 
 was sent to The Lewis, “ who had not been previously instructed,” and 
 he attributes the “ unjustifiable expenditure,” as he himself terms it, to 
 the cost of training this raw party during the progress of the work. This, 
 however, occurred before he became superintendent, and is not likely to 
 happen again; and although the purse of the country may have suffered 
 by a few thousands (if not also the accuracy of the survey), all has more 
 than been made up since by the experienced workmanship, in other parts of 
 Scotland, of this self-trained Lewis party. 
 
 Be this as it may, the worthy Baronet has obtained a beautiful survey 
 on the six-inch scale ; and, so far as I was able to judge from an inspection 
 of considerable portions while travelling through the island, map in hand, 
 it is as minute and accurate as it is beautiful. Although profusely 
 contoured, besides having innumerable heights marked along the roads 
 and other places, it wants the “ hachure,” or hill shading, as we express 
 it, which speaks to the eye of every observer so much more graphically. 
 The features of the country, both natural and artificial, are otherwise 
 clearly and minutely depicted, to the laying down of the smallest rivulet, 
 from its rise to its debouche, the marking of every one of the numerous 
 black huts in the townships (or “hosts” and “ shaddars,” as they are 
 called in Lewis), and to the noting as “ gravel pit ” of every hole dug for 
 the repairs of the roads. 
 
 But the plan does not distinguish cultivated from uncultivated land (at 
 least to any but an Ordnance eye, if to it), unless a fence or enclosure 
 intervenes, and there is nothing to show the possession of one man from 
 that of another. No boundary is marked and no area is given, except 
 that of parishes. Peat mosses are distinguished from hard moor ground, 
 but the portions susceptible of improvement, or incapable of it, are not 
 marked ; and a proprietor could obtain no notion of the capabilities, or the 
 resources, of his property from an inspection of such a plan. 
 
 If, therefore, Sir James Matheson had spent the ,£1000 which he paid 
 the Treasury for allowing the Ordnance to depart from their rule of 
 working up to a parallel, in obtaining private surveys of the cultivated 
 and improvable portions of his extensive territory, and dispensed with the 
 survey of the moorland portions till his regular turn came, I believe he 
 would have obtained a greater advantage ; and ultimately he would have 
 got the one-inch map of the whole island, which I have a notion he would 
 now regard as more useful than the present practically useless and 
 cumbrous six-inch survey; many of the sheets of which, but for the 
 numerous lakes and pools of water, or the artistic contouring by the 
 draughtsman, would in reality be a “ carte blanche” 
 
5 
 
 You can have now no excuse for delaying what Sir John Sinclair called 
 the first step to the improvement of a property, a minute survey, and plan ; 
 and I would suggest your procuring from Colonel James, through your 
 
 friend-, a diagram of the Ordnance stations in the district, and the 
 
 calculated lengths of the sides of their triangles, together with the heights of 
 hills and of bench marks, for the use and guidance of your private surveyor. 
 In my next letter I will detail to you the objects which you should have 
 in view in obtaining this private survey, and the mode in which, in my 
 opinion, your surveyor should proceed. In the meantime, I beg to direct 
 your attention to Colonel James’s memorandum (Appendix No 10) on the 
 advantages of “ a strictly public nature,” which would be gained by a 
 national survey on a large scale. Most of the advantages enumerated in 
 this ably drawn up paper you will find to apply to yourself as a proprietor. 
 The few remaining advantages specified by him, and which may be 
 considered “ strictly public,” are peculiar to particular departments of 
 the state, and only affect the general public, which bears the whole 
 expense of such, as a part of that department’s efficiency. To this there is 
 one, and only one, exception, which is both public and private, and cannot 
 be said to be peculiar to its particular department—“ The Inland 
 Revenue”—for it peculiarly affects every parish as such, and quite 
 independently, as much as it does the nation’s income. 
 
 I allude to “ Object No. III. To facilitate the valuation of property, and 
 for the equitable adjustment of local taxation.” This is the great aim of 
 every parochial board, viz., to obtain the bond fide value of each individual 
 ownership within its bounds; and it is interesting to proprietors individually, 
 as their desideratum is to know the true worth and value of their estates ; 
 and the Government could not confer a greater boon upon them, as well as 
 upon their tenants, than to tell them the true annual value of every 
 possession. 
 
 It equally, also, affects the National or General Revenue, as it does the 
 Local Income, as there ought not to be two valuations, and everyone 
 should pay to the general exigencies of the state on exactly the same data 
 as he does to the necessities of the parish. This, however, is not a new 
 country, where every owner is also the occupier of his acres, or where the 
 state valuation may be made the rule for both. In Scotland, where nine- 
 tenths of the property is transferred to the occupants at a fixed rent, the 
 parochial authorities might as soon attempt to make tenants pay more 
 than this, or proprietors to be content with less, as to require the latter 
 to tax themselves on value without reference to the rents they received. 
 In England leases are more the exception than the rule, and every tenant is 
 bound to pay every tax on land in addition to his stipulated rent; but there, 
 in the absence of leases, a new valuation would only be agreed to on the 
 tenants receiving compensation for the improvements which had raised the 
 value of their lands, and this would introduce the much and justly repudiated 
 system of Irish “ Tenant Right.” No ; a new valuation could only be 
 of any public general use on the introduction of a new land tax, which 
 would seem to be contemplated ; and even then, the British public would 
 only suffer it to be proportioned by counties, as it was of old; 
 
6 
 
 and the county amount would have to be apportioned, as parish rates now 
 are, not according to present value alone, hut with reference to rent actually 
 received under existing contracts. 
 
 Do not anticipate that the recommendation of the Royal Commission 
 will be disregarded by Parliament on its re-assembling, to save the High¬ 
 land lairds; although it does seem scarcely fair to make them pay for 
 providing their southern neighbours with large scale property plans, 
 because the lands of the latter are comparatively level, or contain 
 abundance of mineral wealth, while they themselves must be content with 
 a travelling map, in consequence of their equally fertile fields being sur¬ 
 rounded or interspersed with mountainous tracts. The probability is, 
 that the first recommendation only will be followed ; and that the second, 
 as to the survey and publication of the northern counties of England and 
 the southern of Scotland, on both the large scales, will be postponed (as 
 the fourth recommendation suggests, as to the determination of extending 
 the largest scale to the whole of the United Kingdom), “ till the contem¬ 
 plated measures, requiring such, may have been adopted.” This is the 
 general feeling of the country, and also of the House of Commons, as 
 evinced by the last vote, on the 18th June, 1857, against the professed 
 wishes of the then favourite Premier and chief. 
 
 If the two-inch survey for the one-inch map had been steadily and 
 vigorously prosecuted from the time that Col. Mudge abandoned the six- 
 inch scale (which was first adopted by General Roy), we should have had a 
 beautiful and correct map of the whole of the United Kingdom, more than 
 twenty years ago ; or, if the recommendation of Lord Elcho’s Committee, 
 in 1851, had been acted upon, we might have had one about this time. 
 Even now, if the first recommendation of the Royal Commission only is 
 followed, we may look for this in a very few years. But, on the other 
 hand, if their second recommendation is followed out in its integrity, the 
 southern counties of England will not be satisfied with a less scale than 
 has been granted to the north ; the Irish members will clamorously de¬ 
 mand equal justice with England and Scotland—although Colonel Larcom 
 and Major Griffiths have declared that the six-inch survey has answered all 
 their purposes, and that they would not increase the scale although the 
 survey was to be done over again ; and none now alive will ever see the 
 completion of one uniform map. 
 
 It is a pity that the Royal Commission did not confine their recom¬ 
 mendation to the first, “ That the one-inch map of the United Kingdom 
 be forthwith completed, engraved, and published.” Their Report affords 
 evidence that they were disposed to do^ so, but for the representations of 
 Col. James, on whose shoulders the blame of any further delay must now 
 entirely rest. 
 
 In the first place, the Commission is unwilling to scatter, and so lose, 
 the valuable services of a staff which has been trained and brought to so 
 high a state of efficiency, at such a large cost of money to the public, and 
 such an amount of personal labour to Colonel James; or to abandon the 
 institution at Southampton, after reaching its present state of perfection, 
 with all its ingenious contrivances for multiplying copies of the large plan 
 “ by millions,” with electric speed, at almost no expense. But the com- 
 
7 
 
 pletion of the survey for the one-inch map would occupy the whole staff for 
 some considerable time; and, if I am not mistaken, the adjustment and 
 correction of the published part would take up at least as much more. If 
 the map shows anything correctly, it ought to be the iron roads which now 
 form a net-work through the length and breadth of England; but this 
 could only be by subsequent correction ; for, on the publication of the first 
 sheet, railways were unknown; the Surrey Railroad (with horse-power), 
 the first established for public use in this country, had its company incor¬ 
 porated only in 1801; and on the publication of the last sheet, before the 
 transference of the staff to Ireland, there were not above a score over the 
 whole of England, and these all of horse-power; for in 1825 the appli¬ 
 cation of locomotive steam-engines to the Liverpool and Manchester Rail¬ 
 way was only being discussed by its projectors. On the sheet No. 7, now 
 before me, published on the 1st August, 1822, but with the Ordnance seal 
 stamp upon it, dated 2nd September, 1851 (which would seem to denote the 
 date of correction), the London and Birmingham, and the Great Western, 
 both opened in 1838, and the London and South Western, opened in 1840, 
 are each distinctly marked ; but no railway is shown to Windsor, although 
 at that date (1851) there were two branches open to the public, the one 
 from the Southampton line, on the east, and the other from the Great 
 Western, on the north. 
 
 In the second place, the Commission bases its recommendation of the 
 completion of the survey and publication of the cultivated parts on 
 the 25 and six-inch scales, in the belief that this “will involve no 
 delay in the publication of the one-inch map and gives a preference to 
 the 2 5-inch survey, on account of the small difference between the 
 expense of it and that of the six-inch, and because the former furnishes 
 material for the publication both of the six-inch and the one-inch maps. 
 This seems extraordinary, and requires explanation, which Colonel James 
 affords in his evidence, to the satisfaction of the Commissioners; but 
 whether it may prove equally so to the country, or to its representatives 
 in Parliament, remains to be seen. He does not pretend that no longer 
 time is required for the 25-inch survey, or that it incurs no greater 
 expense ; on the contrary, he gives, in Appendix No. 3, the cost of both : 
 that of the two-inch survey for the one-inch map, £8 6s. 8d. per square 
 mile; and for the 25-inch, lljd. per acre, nearly <£32 per square 
 mile, or four times as much. But there is great difficulty in procuring 
 sufficiently qualified hill-sketchers for the small map, and it is impossible 
 to find engravers sufficiently trained to do the work in the style required; 
 and on consultation with Colonel Cameron, who has the charge of the engrav¬ 
 ing department, he finds that there will be no loss of time in proceeding 
 with the 25-inch survey, although it has to be reduced to the six- 
 inch, and then again to the one; for, at the utmost expedition which it is 
 possible to use in the engraving of the small map, they can easily supply 
 the manuscript sheets without any cessation of the other work. In other 
 words, although the reduction for the one-inch map was now ready to be 
 put into the hands of the engraver, it would be seven years, or perhaps 
 eight, before it could be taken out of them completely finished. I am 
 inclined to think, with all deference to Colonels James and Cameron, that 
 
8 
 
 if one of the eminent engraving firms in London had been examined by the 
 Commission, they would have stated that there was nothing to prevent the 
 work being completed in half that time, and would have undertaken to 
 produce the finished copper-plates as fast as Colonel James furnished the 
 drawn sheets, in a style and with a correctness equal to the published 
 maps, beautiful though these be, provided that they were not interfered 
 with during the progress of the work. There are two questions which I 
 feel surprised that some one of the learned and scientific members of the 
 Commission did not think of asking Colonel James. First, whether he did 
 not think that a one-inch map would be more correct from a two-inch 
 survey, than from a 25 one twice reduced? Second, whether some 
 of the modes detailed in Appendix No. 9, for multiplying copies of 
 the larger maps with so much correctness, expedition, and cheapness, 
 could not be applied to the one-inch map ; and if not, the reason why? 
 
 The cost of Recommendation No. 1—that is, the completion of the 
 whole United Kingdom on the one-inch scale—will only be £279,972, 
 which few would find fault with the Commons for granting, by a stated 
 annual vote, for seven, eight, or even ten years, in order to secure 
 what has been so long anxiously looked for, and is still so universally desired, 
 a good authentic map of Great Britain and Ireland. But this survey 
 would be confined to the one great object, and no part of it would be 
 available for any of the other numerous objects of a “ cadastral survey ”— 
 not even for that of the Hydrographer it is stated, at least without a re¬ 
 plotting to the scale he desires; and so much has been already surveyed 
 and laid down to the large 25-inch scale, that many (and I con¬ 
 fess myself one of the number) feel inclined to sympathize with the second 
 recommendation of the Commission, viz., the completion of the cultivated 
 zone to this scale, at only a cost of as much more, if they could bring 
 themselves to believe that this would not exceed the amount stated, 
 <£553,066, and that its execution would not delay that of the one- 
 inch map. 
 
 They felt, with Lord Elcho, in 1853, that too much had been already 
 conceded to admit of withholding still further concessions (and greater 
 ones have been granted since that date), although their opinion remains 
 unchanged as to the soundness of the views of the Committee of 1851, 
 which recommended, on the ground of practical utility, the vigorous 
 prosecution of the one-inch map, and condemned the larger scales as 
 interfering with it. 
 
 One concession only leads to another, and renders that other of easier 
 attainment; and thus concession after concession will continue to be 
 granted till the final realization of what may now be called the Ordnance 
 aim, viz., a cadastral survey of the whole kingdom to the French scale 
 of a-^o °f mature. When this will be obtained it is unnecessary to 
 inquire, as none of the present generation are likely to see it. The large 
 scale is not a new idea, for, according to Colonel James, General Mudge 
 abandoned some 20-inch work of General Roy’s, but it only took firm hold 
 of the Ordnance mind at the time of the tithe survey in 1836, on the 
 suggestion of Colonel Dawson; and a conviction of its utility has been 
 ever since gaining ground, by its being constantly dinned into the Treasury 
 
9 
 
 ear. If the idea had occurred before 1824, there is little doubt the Irish 
 survey would have had the benefit of it, for there is no difference in the 
 expense of surveying for the six-inch and the 25-inch scales—the additional 
 cost is only in the plotting; and it would have saved the enormous 
 expense of calculating all the minute areas by ground measurements, which 
 Colonel James calls the scale of nature. 
 
 It is quite natural for Colonels Dawson and James (the latter of whom, 
 by the way, has never expressed his opinion as to the best scale) to desire 
 to depict on paper all that their eye sees before them in nature; and they 
 must feel annoyed when a single dot of their pencils slurs or swallows up 
 some half-dozen minute measurements made on the ground. It is 
 likely, too, that they see advantages from a large scale survey, which 
 are so general as to be viewed by them as public, although not 
 apparent to others, till the particular, and it may be private, occasion 
 brings them into requisition. Call their desire for a large scale their 
 hobby, if you please, but do not attribute it to any but the best of 
 motives. 
 
 The Royal Commission does not interfere with the final determination, 
 as to the completion of the survey of the whole United Kingdom on the 
 25-inch scale, but leaves it “ to the decision of the Legislature when the 
 contemplated measures, with which it is more immediately connected, may 
 have been adopted but they state the cost, according to Colonel James’s 
 estimate, at only <£2,686,764, little more than double what the six-inch 
 and one-inch map of Ireland have cost. Again, I say, satisfy the country 
 that this can be done without interfering with the immediate prosecution of 
 the one-inch map, and that one-half of the advantages said to be derivable 
 from a large scale survey can be purchased for the nation at such a sum, 
 large though it be, and few will object to the expenditure. Never mind, 
 just now, the expense of keeping such a map “ au courant ” with the 
 change effected by time, large and certain though that must be; leave it 
 to the age which has to bear it, and which will retain or lose the advantage 
 by attending to or neglecting this indispensable duty of correcting the plan. 
 Give in at once to the Ordnance hobby , and allow them, instead of dis¬ 
 banding a single man of the beautifully trained force, to employ all their 
 available staff on such a desirable undertaking, provided no delay is 
 interposed on any pretence to the country’s hobby of a general one-inch map. 
 If the smallest delay is conceded, on the plea of economy, or of giving 
 the general map any superiority from the new and more correct survey 
 (as the last finished may be expected to be), the country will again be as 
 far off as ever from obtaining its object. 
 
 To improve the apt but homely simile of Mr. Brunei—do not allow the 
 famishing man to risk his life, by abstaining from the plain food ready for 
 him, while waiting for the sumptuous feast which is being prepared. By 
 using the one now, he will be in all the better condition for enjoying the 
 other, when it does come, hereafter. 
 
 It is this which is to be feared by conceding the second recommendation 
 of the Royal Commission. The fear of this prompted and carried the 
 motion of Sir D. Norreys, on Friday, the 18th of June, 1857; and a 
 similar one may be expected to be carried next session, although it is to be 
 
10 
 
 hoped that it will assume a more definite form. Lord Palmerston 
 interpreted it as condemnatory of the 25-inch scale — hut only in 
 reference to its interference with the preparation and publication of the 
 one-inch map. Few of the 172 members who voted with the mover 
 cared a straw, it is believed, whether the 25-inch survey was proceeded 
 with or not, and every one of them wished the continuance of the survey 
 for the general map ; but it was a questionable mode of showing any desire 
 for an object, by striking off <£36,000 voted for its accomplishment, without 
 any explanation, except what might be gathered from the debate. The 
 question which ought to be clearly stated to Parliament should be, “ Shall 
 we adopt the first recommendation of the Commission with or without the 
 second ?” and then a vote should be taken for an eighth of one or the other 
 estimate accordingly. 
 
 If the vote is not confined to the first recommendation, or if, in 
 acceding to the second, a distinct resolution is not come to that nothing is 
 to be allowed to interfere with carrying it out, in all its integrity, within 
 the specified time, old excuses for change and alteration will be revived, 
 or new ones substituted. 
 
 The cultivated zone will be, of course, first proceeded with. There is 
 sufficient reason for this in the requirements of the hydrographical survey, 
 which, it seems, is still going on, although I had heard it was completed 
 long ago, all along the east coast, by Captains Otter and Slater, without any 
 strip being done to their hand by the Ordnance Surveyors. Such a strip, 
 however, Colonel James shows to be necessary on a six-inch scale; and he 
 has provided for it, although it does not appear on the map “ all round 
 the Highlands and Islands,” by a separate and additional estimate of 
 <£16,645 (Appendix No. 5), and this cannot be objected to. But this strip 
 is not limited to one, or two, or ten miles, and unless the amount to be 
 expended is strictly so, it may be extended on either side, till there is 
 nothing left for the two-inch scale, or till the central barren Highland two- 
 inch zone is so narrowed, that it is found easier to continue the survey for 
 the six-inch scale than to change it for the two; and this being conceded, on 
 “ proper representation to the Treasury,” it will be suggested as there is 
 no difference in the field-work of the six and 25-inch scales, that for 
 all the difference of the cost of plotting, only f- 0 of a penny, it will be 
 thought a pity to lose the great advantage of having the whole on one 
 uniform large scale; particularly when it is found that there are numerous 
 interspersed oases, in these Highland deserts, producing something more 
 than deer and heath, which are as well entitled to a minute survey as any 
 field in the Lothians. So that you have yet a chance of obtaining a large 
 scale Ordnance Survey of your Highland glens, as well as Lowland fields ; 
 but you cannot calculate on this till the expiry of another nineteen years’ 
 lease, and I would not have you defer the present benefit, even for a single 
 year, in any such hope. 
 
 Should this fail, there are other chances, if opportunity is afforded, of 
 obtaining the Ordnance grand cadastral object, which may be called the 
 portrait; but at the expense of still further delay in the finishing of the 
 country’s miniature, and some trifling addition to the present estimate of 
 <£500,000. 
 
11 
 
 In the progress of the coast survey “ round the Highlands and Islands,” 
 Colonel James will discover, if, indeed, with his extensive topographical 
 knowledge, he can be now ignorant of the fact, that there are numerous 
 fertile straths, with innumerable patches of cultivation, surrounded by dikes 
 of stone and earth called enclosures, more like the suburbs of a city than a 
 mountain apanage , and almost equally populous, kissing the ocean brink, 
 and extending through the hills in various ramifications, more difficult 
 faithfully to represent, on even a 25-inch scale, than any cultivated 
 district in England. 
 
 Should the Ordnance be so strictly tied down as to be precluded from 
 moving in the matter, Sir Charles Trevelyan (if not gone to Madras), will 
 become himself the lever of the Treasury, as he has been before ; and 
 his fertile mind will not lack opportunity. One of the most generally 
 acknowledged public uses to which a large scale map may be applied, is 
 that for the purposes of conveying and registering landed property, and 
 the Lord Advocate, or some Mr. Coulson, will quickly discover that 
 minute subdivision of property is not confined to the Lowlands, but 
 extends, as well, to moor and mountain in the Highlands and Islands; and 
 if a large scale is necessary for the conveyance and registration of the 
 former, so must it be for the latter. 
 
 The only way to secure the speedy execution of the general map, is to 
 confine the labours of the Ordnance to that one object; and the most 
 effectual mode of doing this, will be the limiting the vote to the first 
 recommendation, and postponing consideration of the others till it is 
 accomplished. In this way we may hope, ere long, to have the national 
 disgrace wiped off (for such it must be considered), of having had 
 published, and that in the form of subscription too, the first sheets of a 
 national map in 1801, while 58 years after we had only two-thirds 
 surveyed, and less than one-half engraved and given to the public. 
 I wonder how many of the original subscribers are still alive ? If 
 private individuals, instead of the Government, had been the publishers, 
 they would have been prosecuted long ago for breach of contract. How 
 much has been effected in every other department of the State by the 
 servants of the Government at home and abroad, while we have neglected, 
 or delayed, the superficial representation of the parent country! We 
 have probed and “ plumbed” the character of our neighbours, but 
 neglected the important, though heathen, injunction, “ know thyself!” 
 We have gauged the heavens, and catalogued the stars (though not the 
 British Museum Library), and, besides obtaining nearer glimpses of the 
 old worlds in space, have discovered new ones. We have measured the 
 whole earth, both by size and weight—Colonel James tells us that he has 
 not only fixed the exact position of Great Britain on the globe (as he 
 proposes to fix the position of every gentleman’s estate within its bounds), 
 and the length of a degree of meridian, from which he derives the exact 
 figure and dimensions of the earth, but he has, also, from his observations, 
 determined its mean specific gravity. We have mapped and measured 
 India, and even noted its paddy fields, from the Hoogley to the Indus, 
 and from the shore of Cape Comorin to the heights of Himalaya. 
 We have made, and are making, beautiful surveys of many colonial 
 
12 
 
 possessions belonging to ourselves, as well as others owning another 
 sovereignty. Nay, even before the cannon’s mouth, and at the risk of 
 being blown up by unknown submarine infernal machines, we have sur¬ 
 veyed and laid down the enemies’ coasts, and sounded their secret channels 
 of approach; and yet we have no map of the imperial parent dominions, 
 and are ignorant of their superficial extent. Ireland has been correctly 
 measured, but its total area has not been computed, at least not authori¬ 
 tatively stated; and the same may be said of four-fifths of England, 
 while that of the six Northern counties is only vaguely guessed at; and 
 Colonel James acknowledges that there is a difference between the 
 authorities on the Scottish area of only from 1000 to 2000 square 
 miles. We have several times, since the survey began, numbered the people, 
 and yet we cannot tell how many acres there are to each individual, even 
 in the gross, and still less in cultivable or available land. 
 
 The only excusable delay has been that of five years, from 1811 to 
 1816, during which we were at war, and part of the Ordnance staff was 
 required abroad;—from the date of the commencement of the survey 
 we have never been exposed to war, within our territories, either from 
 civil commotion or foreign invasion, and there was no necessity for a total 
 discontinuance of the survey during any part of the period. 
 
 The only attempted excuse for the other delays has been the repeated 
 changes from scale to scale, and the uncertainty of any fixed plan; owing 
 to which, a numerous staff were, for considerable periods, kept compara¬ 
 tively idle, thousands, or rather hundreds of thousands, of acres had to be 
 re-surveyed, and many thousands of the public money (much understated 
 at <£25,000), literally squandered. The Ordnance and the Treasury 
 throw all the blame on the Committees; but is none attachable to one or 
 other of themselves, or to both ? Colonel James says, “ The moment we 
 receive the manuscript, we immediately reduce it to the one-inch scale,” 
 and if this is persevered in, the engraving of the whole will soon be 
 finished. But this could not have been the case previous to his appoint¬ 
 ment in 1854. Why were not the 800,000 acres of surveyed work, 
 said to have accumulated in field notes in 1856, from the uncertainty of 
 the scale, not protracted for the one-inch map, which in any case was to 
 be required ? And whose fault was it, that five whole years’ work, ex¬ 
 pressly for the one-inch map (from 1851 to 1856), was not made 
 available for it, instead of being cast aside as useless, as it is stated to 
 have been ? This cannot be charged to the Committee of 1856, for it 
 adopted the six-inch scale “ as the intermediate scale for the production 
 of the one-inch map,” and on the understanding that no unnecessary delay 
 could occur, in its production, by doing so. 
 
 The Treasury, too, seem to be exonerated by their recorded minute of 
 18th of May, 1855, founded on a report and memorandum submitted to 
 them by Colonel James himself; for its fourth paragraph says, “ That the 
 general map of Scotland, on the scale of one inch to the mile, should be 
 proceeded with as rapidly as possible.” 
 
 The surveys of France and England were commenced about the same 
 time ; indeed, the former prompted the latter, although only now sought to 
 be followed as to the scales; and, surely, there was nothing to prevent 
 
13 
 
 England from accomplishing the same amount of work in a given time, 
 or at least progressing in an equal ratio. France (exclusive of Corsica) 
 contains 200,925 square miles; England and Wales only 00,000, and 
 Scotland and Ireland as much more. The French government has finished 
 and published two-thirds of France (a greater area than all Great Britain 
 and Ireland) in what is called a topographical map to a scale of *792 of an 
 inch to a mile, besides 100,000 square miles as a geographical map, on 
 a scale of about two-tenths of an inch to a mile. Her grand cadastral 
 survey on the 25-inch (or t ^ 0 ~ q of nature), the basis of these, has, it is pre¬ 
 sumed, at least equally progressed. It was commenced only in 1807, 
 avowedly for a valuation of her estimated 100 millions of separate parcels 
 of land, and is not published, but deposited in manuscript at the principal 
 town of each department. All this, too, notwithstanding France’s foreign 
 wars and numerous internal commotions. The contrast, as Colonel James 
 acknowledges, is indeed “ very melancholy.” 
 
 At the same rate of progress which France has made, the British public 
 should have been now in possession of a map of the United Kingdom ; and 
 it is not too much to say that, under the far happier circumstances of the 
 latter, they ought to have had it at a much earlier period. Private enterprise 
 would have executed it in half the time, at much less cost. If it had been 
 finished even ten or twelve years ago, it would have repaid many times its 
 cost in a public point of view; and even in a private one, its benefits, if 
 they could be estimated, would almost exceed belief. 
 
 Colonel Dawson gives an approximate estimate of <£3,529,830, as the 
 amount which has been expended on surveys and plans for commutation of 
 tithes, enclosure of commons, parochial assessment, and in connexion with 
 railways and health of towns, &c.; independent of a “ considerable sum in 
 respect of surveys for roads, canals, water supply, and the sale and transfer 
 of property, which he has no means of estimating,” all which, he takes for 
 granted, would have been saved by a national government survey on the 
 large scales, as proposed. He ought to have made a parallel estimate of 
 the saving likely to have been effected by the earlier possession of the 
 general map on the one-inch scale. 
 
 It is questionable how far railway engineers would have been satisfied 
 with even the carefully-prepared Ordnance surveys for their working plans. 
 Mr. Brunei says that they would not have been used, and that he would 
 not use them; but he acknowledges, as all do, the great benefit which 
 was derived in selecting railway routes, and in thwarting useless schemes, 
 from an inspection of the Ordnance one-inch topographical map, where its 
 sheets could be obtained. If it had been available for this purpose, 
 as regards Lancashire, York, and Durham, there would have been saved, 
 instead of three millions, three times three millions, which have not merely 
 been uselessly sunk, but which entail an immense additional annual ex¬ 
 pense in maintaining unnecessary lines of railway; for the mere inspection 
 of such a map could not have failed to convince the deluded shareholders 
 of the ruinous consequences before it was too late to draw back. If men’s 
 minds had been familiar with the island in its length and breadth, the 
 popular voice would have seconded Lord Dalhousie’s large, comprehensive, 
 and “ statesmanlike” proposal, made when he was in the Board of Trade, 
 
14 
 
 to select and sanction first one great main direct trunk line round the 
 whole coast, from Dover to Cape Wrath, leaving the interior, and any 
 towns, however considerable, which were out of the proper course, to be 
 supplied by future branches, either in connexion with the parent trunk 
 line, or separately constituted. What an amount of money this would have 
 saved; first, in the original cost; second, in the annual maintenance; and 
 third, in direct fares to the public, nay, even in loss of time, notwithstand¬ 
 ing the present speed of transit, by greatly shortening the distance of 
 through routes. I may add, it might have been the means of securing to 
 the north of Scotland, many years ago, what it is only now experiencing, 
 railway communication with its capital, if not also beyond it, which is 
 likely to remain a desideratum for some time to come. 
 
 It is to be regretted that the occasion of the tithe survey required by the 
 commutation act of 1836, was not taken advantage of to complete the 
 national survey of the remaining six northern counties, as well as to serve 
 the special purposes for which it was undertaken. This would certainly 
 have accelerated the one and more correctly served the other; and, by 
 extending the Ordnance aid to the rest of England, the cadastral survey 
 now sought might have been obtained for the whole at little additional 
 cost, if not, as is alleged, at less. 
 
 The Act was not necessary for Scotland, which had obtained the com¬ 
 mutation boon from Charles I. more than 200 years before (in 1629), but 
 it affected all England, with the exception of about a fifth of tithe-free land 
 scattered over the country. It required the plan and acreage of every 
 property, if not of every field, for fixing the amount of tithe, and still more 
 for identifying the exact locality, and for recording and securing the com¬ 
 muted rent-charge, which continues for all time. If any purpose required 
 a minute survey on a large scale, this was one; and its general nature 
 made it so far public as to sanction a public expenditure with reference to 
 itself alone, irrespective of any ulterior object, although there was no 
 reason for relieving individual proprietors, seeing that the advantages 
 accruing from the permanent settlement of what had previously occasioned 
 so much dispute and annoyance were cheaply purchased at a much larger 
 expenditure. The Law Amendment Society could not have desired, and 
 will never have a more favourable opportunity for ascertaining and fixing 
 the boundaries of estates, and of parishes, so essential to the attainment of 
 its objects in regard to the transfer and registration of land. Who are to 
 blame that such an opportunity was lost ? Colonel Dawson, of the Royal 
 Engineers, a first-rate surveyor and draughtsman, as well as a most 
 intelligent man, who makes a very clear statement on the matter, exone¬ 
 rates the tithe commissioners, and also the government of the day, and 
 charges a Committee of the House of Commons with the rejection of the 
 plan proposed. He was judiciously selected in 1836 to have entire 
 charge of the mapping department of the tithe commission (but in the sub¬ 
 ordinate capacity of assistant commissioner), and also of the Poor-law Com¬ 
 mission, which required maps for assessment purposes, and he was evidently 
 “ the right man in the right place.” He had had seventeen years’ training 
 and experience on the Ordnance survey of England and Ireland, and was 
 entrusted with the preparation of the Burgh plans, fixing the parliamentary 
 
15 
 
 boundaries under the Reform Bill of 1832. Subsequently (in 1845), he was 
 employed as mapping adviser and assistant commissioner to the Inclosure 
 Commission (to which drainage has been united), and is now, as he has 
 been for five years, the professional adviser and assistant of the Treasury 
 on all subjects connected with public surveying and mapping, including 
 that of the Ordnance. 
 
 On his suggestion to the Tithe Commission, the Government was 
 memorialised in 1836 to allow the survey for the Commutation Act to be 
 proceeded with on a scale of three chains to an inch, or 26| inches to the 
 mile, by country surveyors and mappers, and apparently at the expense 
 of the landowners, but as a national survey, so as to include the tithe-free 
 land as well as the parishes not immediately desirous of commuting, and 
 under the Ordnance superintendence, with a view to ulterior objects as well 
 as to the one particularly required. 
 
 The Government concurred; but unfortunately the matter was referred 
 to one of those “ wayward 5 ’ committees who reported unfavourably, and the 
 cadastral survey was knocked on the head by the passing of the Tithe 
 Amendment Act of 1847. This act allowed proprietors to do as they 
 liked in regard to the preparation of surveys and plans, just as they would 
 have been entitled to do had the object been only to serve their own 
 private purposes, exonerating the Tithe Commission from sealing and 
 attesting any but those of which they approved. Instructions were issued 
 for the preparation of these, by Colonel Dawson acting for the Tithe Com¬ 
 mission (as also for the Poor Law one); and so little was the Commission 
 seal approval appreciated, that only one-sixth of the whole surveys re¬ 
 quired were executed according to the rules entitling them to be found 
 worthy of receiving its impression; and this proportion only, under the 
 name of first class, were adopted as correct and satisfactory maps for the 
 Inclosure Commission purposes, while the remaining five-sixths, being all 
 the second class maps, have been actually ignored as utterly worthless; 
 although Colonel Dawson estimates that upwards of one million seven 
 hundred and fifteen thousand pounds have been spent on the whole 
 business. 
 
 The Tithe Commission renewed their application to the Treasury in 
 1842, when they understood the Ordnance survey was, on the completion 
 of Ireland, to be extended to the six northern counties, but with little 
 better immediate success, partly on the ground of the additional estimated 
 cost of .£68,500, but more because the concession would necessitate the 
 extension of the large scale to the rest of the kingdom. 
 
 It is probable that the expense formed an element in influencing the 
 judgment of the Committee which rejected the tithe proposal, although the 
 members were assured by the Commission that the plan would lessen it; 
 but the fear of delay to the principal object of simultaneous commutation, 
 from the past experience of Ordnance progress, no doubt more powerfully 
 swayed their decision; and they would naturally consider that, if the 
 several parties interested were mutually satisfied, no great wrong could be 
 inflicted on either, and it did not much signify by what machinery the 
 agreement was effected. The Tithe Commissioners were excluded from 
 personal supervision of the unimpressed or second class maps, and only 
 
16 
 
 first saw them, as Colonel Dawson says, on their being submitted for ex¬ 
 amination in a completed state. But it is presumed that the tithe owners 
 and the guardians of the Church had an equal right with the proprietors, 
 from whose lands the tithes were drawn, to be satisfied as to all the data 
 of commutation, and therefore, of course, as to the accuracy of the surveys 
 and maps; and the Commission, as the sole arbiter and equal represen¬ 
 tative of all parties, had the power of challenging whatever was shown to 
 be wrong. It does not, therefore, follow that the second class maps, as 
 they have been denominated, were inferior to the first class ones, because 
 Colonel Dawson’s instructions had not been followed to the letter, which 
 alone secured the official seal; and the Tithe Commission, in point of fact, 
 was, and is, as much responsible for any error in the one as in the other. 
 Colonel Dawson’s instructions, though no doubt drawn with knowledge and 
 judgment, may have frightened private surveyors by their minuteness; or 
 attention to them may have involved great additional trouble and expense ; 
 and he ought, therefore, with or without regard to his own instructions, to 
 have applied to all the maps the certain test of the Ordnance triangulation 
 and measurements so far as they went. These he could have had no diffi¬ 
 culty in obtaining access to, through the Treasury, if not directly from the 
 Ordnance;—this would have been superior to any instructions, and would 
 have defied evasion. Colonel Dawson says in his evidence, that even the 
 first class maps “ would have been certainly better maps if they had been 
 founded on a scientific basis of triangulation as the Ordnance maps are 
 and it is unaccountable why he did not furnish to all the tithe surveyors 
 the lengths of the tertiary triangles, when it is considered that by doing 
 so considerable expense would have been saved and greater accuracy 
 secured in the construction of all the maps, including even the first class 
 ones. If he had done this, no greater trouble would be now required to 
 render the whole (second as well as first) as correct as any Ordnance 
 survey map, of the same date, than would have been necessitated in 1836 
 in correcting and adjusting, for tithe commutation, a national survey under¬ 
 taken in 1801 on the scale now desired, however minute and however 
 correct, at the time of its accomplishment. 
 
 II.— HISTORY OF THE ORDNANCE SURVEY. 
 
 I will now give you an outline, or slight sketch, of the history of this 
 unfortunate business, as Colonel James calls it, but which has been else¬ 
 where quaintly enough denominated “ a cross between a blunder and 
 a jobr 
 
 Strange to say, Scotland was the first commenced, under Government 
 auspices, although likely to be last finished, unless the large scale is ex¬ 
 tended to the whole of England. In 1747, Generals Watson and Roy 
 were employed to survey the forfeited estates, which comprised the greater 
 portion of the Highlands, and afterwards extended their operations 
 over the whole of the mainland. This map was considered by its author, 
 General Roy, only as a military sketch, but portions of it are extremely 
 minute and correct even to the present day ; and some of the plans of the 
 
17 
 
 forfeited estates, on a scale of four Scots chains, or about sixteen inches to 
 the mile, whidh I have seen, would not suffer by comparison with even 
 Colonel James’ 25-inch productions. Unfortunately many of these were 
 consumed by fire, in the burning of the Edinburgh Register Office. 
 
 But the true Ordnance survey of the kingdom, which has been dragging 
 its weary length through all that has gone of the present century, was not 
 commenced till long after the completion of the Scottish military sketch. 
 
 Britain was first instigated to the commencement of the Ordnance survey 
 by our French neighbours. The first base was measured by General Roy, 
 in 1784, on Hounslow Heath, on an invitation by the French Government 
 to connect France and England trigonometrically, with the view of 
 determining the difference of longitude between the meridians of Paris and 
 Greenwich; and thus commenced, the survey progressed vigorously for 
 many years under General Roy’s superintendence. I have always under¬ 
 stood that the primary triangulation was completed early in the century, 
 and remember when a hoy, in the north of Scotland, being taken to see 
 the encampment of the English red-coats, who frightened the elderly 
 dames by their associating the dress with the deeds of violence which 
 ensued on the quelling of the last rebellion in their younger days. But, 
 according to Colonel James, this primary triangulation received its finishing 
 stroke from his hand only in March, 1856. The sides of the large triangles 
 vary from sixty to one hundred and twenty miles, and connect the Lizard 
 Point, the Bloody Foreland, and the Butt of Lewis, or Lews, as the island 
 is now called, with astronomical accuracy. 
 
 This triangulation was alike necessary for the twenty-five, the twelve, 
 the six, or the one-inch scale of a connected survey; and, thank God, the 
 great work is now finished, if not also what is called the secondary—with 
 sides of from five to ten miles long, although Colonel James does not ex- 
 pressly say so; they require to^be connected with each other and “tied” 
 to the primary, with all the accuracy which the last demands. The 
 tertiary, or minor triangulation, with sides of about a mile in length, is 
 proceeded with, as Colonel James explains, only when required for the 
 detailed survey. 
 
 No one grudges the cost of the grand scientific trigonometrical survey of 
 the kingdom, enormous as it has been from first to last, although some 
 think, particularly since Colonel James announced that it was only per¬ 
 fected in 1856, seventy-two years after its commencement, that there 
 must have been a useless expenditure both of time and money. This great 
 national undertaking was in a manner a complete work of itself, without 
 regard to the filling up of details to one scale or another ; it was intended 
 to form the basis of all succeeding surveys, and ought to have been long 
 since made available to the public, so far as it was complete, for every 
 purpose, whether private, public, or national. 
 
 This would have insured general accuracy to the Tithe Commission, 
 Inclosure, Poor Law, and Railway surveys, as well as to those undertaken 
 by Scottish proprietors for their private purposes; and I cannot under¬ 
 stand why it is not now generally accessible. This is what Mr. Sopwith 
 aims at in his evidence, which seemed to puzzle the Committee, and which 
 Colonel James rather mystifies than clears up, whether he understood 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 what was meant or not, and he could hardly mistake. Mr. Sopwith, 
 indeed, hints at something more, and seems wishful to have the triangles 
 actually laid down and engraved on a scale even more enormous than 
 the 25-inch, with all the 44 markings ” within a certain distance of either 
 side of the lines—40 yards, I think; but this is quite unnecessary, and 
 would entail a large expense, as Colonel James points out. The actual 
 measurement of the sides of the triangles, with, or even without, the 
 heights of the stations, is all that is required, and the whole might be put on 
 a few Ordnance sheets with sufficient clearness; at any rate on the one- 
 inch map, even to the tertiary triangulation. Colonel James says that 
 this is given on the published maps as each station is marked, and the dis¬ 
 tance has only to be measured by the scale ; but part of the lines may be 
 on one sheet and part on another,—and no one knows better than 
 he does that the process of engraving misplaces points and alters the 
 lengths of lines. If he wished to lay down a new sheet upon a different, 
 or even upon the same scale, he would at once have recourse to the original 
 calculated lengths, and not be satisfied with transferring them from the 
 completed MS. draft sheet, and still less from a distorted engraved one. 
 
 The primary triangulation may not have been perfected over every part 
 of the kingdom till 1856, as Colonel James states; but the whole must 
 have been complete, even to the minor triangles of a mile a side, over all 
 England to the Humber and Mersey, in 1821, when the survey to these 
 points was finished. If, moreover, the primary triangulation of the six 
 northern counties was not perfected when the detail survey of Scotland com¬ 
 menced, in 1819, or if it was not completed over Scotland from Wigton to 
 The Lewis, when the latter was surveyed before 1851, the Superintendents 
 at these dates must have committed the same error of which Colonel 
 James accuses the Master General of the early part of the survey, in pass¬ 
 ing “ from the south-eastern counties of England to the extreme western 
 counties,” by laying down England and Scotland, as well as the extreme 
 points of the latter, on different meridional projections, and leaving, at the 
 same time, the spaces between entirely unconnected. This surely cannot 
 be the fact, or Colonel James himself would have mentioned it as he does 
 the other for the purpose of censure. There seems little doubt, there¬ 
 fore, that the primary, if not also the secondary triangulation of the six 
 northern counties of England, and of the greater part of Scotland, was 
 sufficiently finished in 1824 to allow any portion to be laid down in con¬ 
 nexion with the rest, and on the same meridional projection. I recollect 
 that a friend of mine, more than twenty years ago, obtained from the 
 Ordnance office (then in the Tower), for a scientific purpose, a diagram of 
 the secondary triangulation of one of the extreme northern counties, with 
 the lengths of the triangular lines and the heights of the hills all distinctly 
 marked upon it. 
 
 None of the witnesses state what progress was actually made either in 
 the trigonometrical survey, or in the filling of it up, in the last century, 
 under General Roy; but it is generally believed that he completed at 
 least the principal part of the primary triangulation both in England and 
 Scotland; and Colonel James mentions that he left maps of Sussex and 
 Kent, and other southern counties, laid down and engraved both to the six 
 
19 
 
 and one-inch scale, as well as some twenty-inch work. Colonel Mudge, 
 who succeeded him, abandoned the six-inch scale for the two-inch survey 
 to be reduced to the one-inch, as the only scale to be engraved for a general 
 map, which he seems to have regarded merely in a military light. It would 
 appear that all the detail work done in the previous century had been 
 abandoned, or, at least, had been corrected and engraved anew; for the 
 first sheet of the beautiful Ordnance map, still in progress, is dated 1801. 
 
 During the war, from 1811 to 1816, the survey was nearly suspended; 
 hut on the declaration of peace, was resumed and steadily prosecuted till 
 the completion of England, in 1821, with the exception of the six northern 
 counties. How these were passed over to commence Scotland, in 1819, 
 does not appear ; hut, between that year and 1827, Wigton, Kirkudbright, 
 and Ayr, were surveyed on the two-inch scale for the one-inch map, and I 
 believe partly engraved as the English counties. 4 
 
 In 1824, Lord Mounteagle, then Mr. Spring Rice, had the influence, 
 through the Report of a Committee which sat that year, to transfer 
 suddenly to Ireland the surveying force which ought to have been engaged 
 With the survey of York and Lancashire. In 1828, the Scottish staff was 
 similarly withdrawn, to minister to the “pressing” wants of the younger 
 and spoiled sister. What had been considered sufficient for England and 
 Scotland, would not do for Ireland. It must be surveyed and mapped to a 
 scale of six inches to the mile, or thirty-six times the size. His lordship, 
 however, although he enlisted France and Bavaria to his aid, failed to get 
 his colleagues in the Committee to recommend a survey by fields and cottar 
 acres; and its minuteness was limited to the laying down and calculating 
 tho areas of the 60,000 “ townlands,” for which, in fact, as they extend 
 from 200 to 1000 acres and upwards, the one-inch map would have been 
 sufficient. He, however, saw his way. The valuators (for a valuation was 
 also agreed to), soon found and reported that they were not furnished with 
 sufficiently minute measurements for their purposes; and having got a large 
 enough scale, “ partial instructions were issued to survey every field.” 
 These were followed accordingly, not only in what remained undone, 
 but in regard to what had been already done though only in town- 
 lands. 
 
 Although the survey of Ireland was completed in 1842, and the maps 
 actually engraved in 1844, on the six-inch scale, the corrections or addi¬ 
 tions, as they are called by Sir Charles Trevelyan, together with the con¬ 
 touring, as recommended by the Committee of 1853, were still in progress 
 in 1856 ; and very probably would have occupied the whole staff till 
 now, and perhaps for years to come, but for the strong representations in 
 regard to the northern counties of England, as well as to Scotland, which 
 poured in upon the Treasury from scientific and other bodies, and in par¬ 
 ticular from the Duke of Montrose, as the representative of the Highland 
 and Agricultural Society of Scotland. 
 
 The Irish survey gave the taste and afforded a precedent (which, good 
 or bad, has such a talismanic influence on public men in England) for an 
 enlarged scale ; and most of the petitions or memorials either required the 
 Irish six-inch, or indicated such a minuteness as could not be accomplished 
 by a lesser one. 
 
 c 2 
 
20 
 
 The Lords of the Treasury, after consulting his Grace the Duke of 
 Wellington (who wrote a letter on the subject printed in the Blue Book 
 of 1854), had no hesitation in concurring with his opinion, that the 
 remainder of England and the whole of Scotland should be surveyed, 
 mapped, aDd engraved, to the six-inch scale ; and that the public should be 
 saved the expense of having any other map engraved on a reduced scale. 
 Thus the military one-inch map was condemned, not merely by the Lords 
 of the Treasury, but by the highest military authority. This, however, 
 was only strictly following the Irish precedent, for the Committee of 1824 
 determined that the six-inch was to supersede the one-inch; and it was 
 only in 1852 that the one-inch was conceded, although Colonel James 
 tells us that Colonel Dawson and his assistants, between the years 1830 
 and 1838, actually sketched one-half of Ireland expressly for the one-inch 
 map. 
 
 This Treasury minute was dated in 1840, and the surveys of England 
 and Scotland were immediately resumed on the enlarged scale, and with 
 the addition of contouring, to the loss of all that had been done in the 
 southern parts of York and Lancashire, and in Wigton, &c., in Scotland. 
 
 In 1842 the Tithe Commission memorialised the Home Office, and 
 through it the Treasury (having obtained Sir James Graham’s sanction) 
 in favour of the 25-inch scale, and against the six-inch, which they 
 declared was worthless for their purpose, or for “ almost 99 any other; 
 but, as I have already mentioned, with the result which attended their 
 strong representation to the same effect in 1836, although, in the interval, 
 the Government had changed hands. 
 
 This memorial, however, led to inquiry as to the proper scale for a 
 national survey, and, ultimately, brought about the partial adoption of the 
 largest scale proposed. On receiving the Ordnance estimate of £68,500 
 as the additional cost of surveying the six northern counties, the Treasury 
 requested the Master General and Board to consider the subject, and 
 report whether the six-inch scale was sufficient for all the purposes wffiich 
 could be facilitated by a large scale survey, or whether good reason existed 
 for incurring the expense of a still larger; what, in short, was the scale 
 suitable for all or most purposes, and which should be adopted. Colonel 
 Colby wrote an able reply, and gave a decided opinion in favour of the 
 25-inch scale. The Duke of Wellington, who was again consulted, 
 without denying the advantages of a larger scale, considered that if it 
 was conceded to part of the country, it must be extended to the whole 
 of England; and on ascertaining from the Ordnance that this would 
 involve a further expenditure of <£1,377,500, the Treasury made a refer¬ 
 ence to Mr. Walker, the civil engineer. He pronounced against the large 
 scale, partly on the ground of the cumbrous size of the map it would pro¬ 
 duce, but more from witnessing in Ireland the minuteness and utility of the 
 six-inch scale for private as well as for public purposes; and the Treasury 
 again determined to adhere to it, by a minute dated January, 1843. 
 
 The survey on this scale slowly progressed both in England and Scot¬ 
 land ; Yorkshire and Lancashire were far advanced in the former, and, in 
 the latter, Wigton and Kirkudbrightshire were both nearly finished, when 
 a jump was made over Peebles and Lanark, to Edinburgh and Haddington, 
 
21 
 
 and a long flight across the whole island, and over The Minch, to the 
 Island of Lewis. 
 
 In 1851, Wigtonsliire was published on the six-inch scale, in thirty- 
 eight sheets, and Kirkudbrightshire ready to be engraved on fifty-five 
 sheets : and the surveys of Edinburgh and Haddington, and the Island of 
 Lewis, were advancing towards completion. Whatever complaints were 
 uttered at the slowness and irregularity of the Ordnance proceedings, and, 
 still more, on account of the abandonment of the one-inch map to private 
 publishers (which was viewed as a breach of faith to the general public), 
 nothing was done till 1851, in the way of interference. 
 
 Lord Seymour’s Ordnance Expenditure Committee gave a tacit approval 
 of the mode of conducting operations, by taking no further notice of the 
 survey, although the estimate was before them, than to recommend that 
 towns should take precedence of rural districts. 
 
 Lord Elclio, however, obtained the appointment of a Committee in 1851, 
 to investigate the case as regarded Scotland. The question before 
 this Committee was confined to the case as between a six-inch 
 and one-inch map; and that of the 25-inch map was not before them; 
 as appears from their Report, dated 10th July, 1851. But the Com¬ 
 mittee was well aware of all that had previously passed on the sub¬ 
 ject, and new evidence was brought before it, particularly in regard to the 
 Irish survey; and it came to the opinion, that the six-inch maps, 
 however valuable as local plans, were practically useless for all general 
 purposes, and did not convey to the mind so accurate an opinion of the 
 physical features and general character of the country as is given by the 
 one-inch map; and that, therefore, the latter is absolutely essential. 
 
 They accordingly recommended “ that the six-inch scale and the system 
 of contouring be abandoned; and that the survey and plotting on the two- 
 inch scale be proceeded with steadily from south to north, as was the 
 original intention, and as rapidly as is consistent with accuracy, with a 
 view to the publication, within ten years, of a one-inch map, shaded and 
 engraved in the manner of the Ordnance one-inch Map of England.” The 
 Committee also recommended that, instead of contouring, as many eleva¬ 
 tions as possible should be given in figures, and that Mr. Brunei’s sug¬ 
 gestions should be adopted as to introducing the lines of latitude and 
 longitude, which the English published maps did not represent. On the 
 21st of October, the Treasury expressed concurrence with this Report, 
 not only in regard to Scotland, but also to England and Ireland, so far as 
 applicable; wrote to the Ordnance, to know if they saw any objection to 
 its adoption; and, on a strong opinion being expressed by that body in 
 favour of maintaining the six-inch map, minuted their decision on 16th 
 December, 1851, that the counties in progress in England, as well as in 
 Scotland, should be completed on the six-inch scale, but that no new work 
 should be undertaken till “ this important subject shall have received more 
 full consideration.” 
 
 “ Then commenced,” to use the words of Sir Charles Trevelyan, “ a 
 strong reaction in Scotland, and the Treasury began to receive represen¬ 
 tations from Commissioners of Supply, Royal Burghs, and various public 
 bodies and individuals in great numbers,” which led to what may be 
 
22 
 
 denominated the scale controversy—“ the battle of the scales ”—a sort of 
 civil war with tongue and pen, which has continued ever since, although 
 there have been more than one armistice ; and which is likely to endure 
 till the rightful sovereign, the one-inch map, is restored to the throne. 
 “ The object of these representations,” continues Sir Charles, “ which 
 went through the years 1852 and 1853, was to induce the Treasury to 
 reverse its decision against the six-inch scaleand it had that effect in 
 two cases. On the 13th June, 1852, Col. Hall, then the Superintendent 
 of the Ordnance Survey, reported that the County of Fife should be sur¬ 
 veyed (as petitioned for) on the six-inch scale, with the view of saving the 
 Hydrographical Surveyors “half their labour along a large extent of 
 coastand because, otherwise, the arable character, the highly mineral 
 nature, and the numerous towns of that ancient kingdom, proved the 
 justice of its claims; and the Treasury passed a minute accordingly, 
 still reserving all other points for further consideration. 
 
 Again, on the 27th September of the same year, “ My Lords, having 
 reference to the peculiar circumstances of Durham county, its great 
 mineral wealth, its numerous coal-pits, and the railways intersecting 
 its length and breadth, are of opinion that a survey on a large scale 
 will be desirable for that county,” and “ are pleased accordingly to 
 sanction the adoption of the six-inch scale for the Ordnance Survey of 
 Durham County.” Observe the ipsissima verba which I have quoted. From 
 these, it is evident that the Lords of the Treasury considered the six-inch 
 a large scale, and there is no allusion to any larger one. They must, 
 however, have suddenly got a new light on the matter in April, 1853 ; 
 for they record a minute on the 15th of that month, in which they say 
 that it appears to my Lords that the field-work of the surveys of Ayr and 
 Dumfriesshire should be carried on with that degree of accuracy which 
 would admit of the plans of the cultivated districts being hereafter drawn 
 to the scale of twenty-four inches to the mile, if desired; and my Lords 
 authorize the adoption of this course, provided the Master-General and the 
 Board are not aware of any valid objections thereto. 
 
 This is the first hint of a larger scale than the six-inch on the part of 
 the Treasury. Who could have enlightened them as to its benefits or 
 requirements ? It was not the public, or even that section of the public 
 represented by the petitioners and memorialists ; for not one body had, as 
 yet, prayed for more than the six-inch scale; and this was the utmost 
 demand of the petitions from Ayr and Dumfries. Nor could it be the 
 Ordnance ; for the Master-General’s letter of the 25th of February, which 
 had remained two months unnoticed, accompanying the petition, contains 
 “ a most earnest recommendation that the six-inch scale should be carried 
 out in the counties of Ayr and Dumfries.” 
 
 The truth is, Colonel Dawson, the professional adviser of the Treasury, 
 and the Ordnance Board either of itself, or through him (although he has 
 not had influence enough to get contouring abandoned), had determined, 
 ever since the tithe commutation suggested the idea, in 183G, that the 
 whole country should be surveyed and plotted to the 25-inch scale, or its 
 decimal approximation, no doubt, from a deep conviction of its many and 
 great advantages; and after gaining over Sir Charles Trevelyan, they have 
 
23 
 
 been, through him, unceasingly employed in mesmerising the successive 
 Lords of the Treasury ; and the subtle influence took potent effect on the 
 15th of April, 1853—the year of the Brussels Conference—the exact hour 
 or minute I cannot say. It very nearly had done so in 1851, when the 
 decision of Lord Elcho’s Committee (as it is called), woke them up. But, 
 in the interval, Mr. Charteris had become Lord Elcho, and Lord Elcho 
 had become a Lord of the Treasury; and on that day, or the next, on 
 meeting Colonel Dawson, his lordship himself was brought within the 
 mesmeric influence. From this date, as will be seen while I bring on the 
 stage the remaining acts of this fitful drama, the Treasury and Ordnance 
 Board have been at one on the subject. On the very day after passing 
 the minute which I have quoted, the Treasury became a willing instru¬ 
 ment, for good or for evil, in Colonel Dawson’s hands, so far as the scales 
 of the survey are concerned. 
 
 This view reconciles several facts, which may be gleaned from the pro¬ 
 fessional evidence of Sir Charles and the two gallant Colonels ; and relieves 
 the House of Commons’ Committees, which have been made scapegoats, 
 of at least a part of the responsibility as to delay, and loss of time and 
 money, clearly chargeable against somebody. 
 
 In justice to Colonel Dawson, I must remark, that he has never minced 
 matters; he has always, from first to last, boldly advocated the largest 
 scale, and nothing less. He always presumes that, in every case, there 
 will be the one-inch topographical or military map ; but he is indifferent 
 about an intermediate one—a six or a twelve, either, neither, or 
 both; the last best, because there cannot be too many plans! Each 
 has its peculiar advantage, but the 2 5-inch he must have, ever since 
 he saw its imperious necessity in the tithe commutation matter, on the 
 simplest of all principles—the greater includes the less. One likes such 
 downright honesty, and only wonders that he did not carry it a little 
 further, and explain to the Treasury Lords, who depended on him for 
 information, what would be the ultimate effect of their conceding the 
 six-inch survey. 
 
 Like praise cannot be extended to the Ordnance Survey Board and 
 superintendents. They would have preferred, as Colonel Colby stated 
 when the question was put to him, the 25-inch; but when they got the 
 six-inch field survey they knew that they had got all that was required 
 out of doors; and that they could plot to any scale, as they now do 
 the Irish survey; and were quite careless about the amount of expense 
 to be in the meantime incurred, however uselessly, on the intermediate 
 six-inch. 
 
 Having had everything measured for the six-inch, we are now told how 
 very trifling is the additional expense of protracting to the 25-inch ; but 
 we are also told, at the same time, of the enormous expense incurred in 
 calculating the areas of the Irish fields from the ground measurements, 
 because they could not be taken from the six-inch as they can from the 
 25-inch scale. And the question naturally arises, “Why did not the Ord¬ 
 nance save some of this large outlay by plotting their draft to the 25-inch 
 scale, simply and purely for calculating the small areas at this very trifling 
 cost ? ” They were required to furnish these to the valuators, and they 
 
24 
 
 were bound to do so in the most economical mode. As to the six-inch 
 plan, to be engraved and published, although Mr. Griffith only required 
 four copies for fiscal purposes, it could at once have been furnished, as we 
 are repeatedly assured, by a photographic reduction. But they seem to say 
 that the direct or ground mode is, unquestionably, the most correct; and 
 if there is no difference in favour of the plan or scale mode in point of 
 expense, it would be better to follow the Irish precedent in all its integrity, 
 and stick to the six-inch plan plotted from the same scale survey. 
 
 Both Sir Charles Trevelyan and Colonel James complain of the delay 
 occasioned by the uncertainty about the scales, and the consequent great 
 inconvenience and loss: the former calls it loss of power , and mentions 
 that 860,000 acres had accumulated unengraved; the latter calls it waste 
 of time and money , and states that on his undertaking the charge, on the 
 11th August, 1854, the accumulation of undrawn work was 867,000 
 acres. But if the Ordnance had been as anxious as the public to have 
 the one-inch map, there need not have been any loss of power, or any 
 waste either of time or money; any accumulation of undrawn or unen¬ 
 graved work could only have arisen subsequent to the Treasury minute of 
 15th April, 1853, and could only refer to that in progress, unless the 
 Ordnance broke faith with the Treasury since 1851, as will be evident by 
 attending to one or two little facts. 
 
 The Report of Lord Elcho’s Committee of 1851, seems never to have 
 been brought before the notice of the House of Commons; at least there was 
 no resolution upon it, and the Treasury were at liberty to treat it merely 
 as a recommendation, and act upon it or not, as they thought proper. The 
 amended Treasury minute of 16th December, 1851, was clear and decisive 
 — 44 that no expense should be incurred ” beyond what was required to com¬ 
 plete the counties in progress, till the matter received more full consider¬ 
 ation ; and no work should have been undertaken in Scotland, in strict 
 accordance with this, except in the case of Fife and Haddington, subse¬ 
 quently sanctioned. But Sir Charles Trevelyan mentions that the Ord¬ 
 nance proposed (after the passing of this minute), on the completion of the 
 counties in progress on the six-inch scale, to proceed with the rest of 
 Scotland 44 on the one-inch, not contoured but hill sketched, and the 
 Treasury sanctioned the arrangement.” He adds, in answer to Mr. Ellice, 
 44 Not that the Ordnance themselves approved of the course, but only in 
 fulfilment of the orders of the Treasury.” If this course had been 
 steadily followed since that date, what an immense progress would have 
 been made in the national map, instead of literally none. If Colonel James 
 had not stated that they had been surveying for the one-inch scale between 
 1.851 and 1856, and that the whole of this one-inch survey had been 
 thrown away, I would have believed that whatever was surveyed had 
 been done on the six-inch scale. He says, 44 We lost <£5000 in conse¬ 
 quence of the suspension of the six-inch survey, and our undertaking the 
 one-inch and at least £20,000 by the stoppage of our proceedings for 
 fifteen months. But this was entirely the fault of the Ordnance itself; 
 and no notice is taken of the loss by the adoption of the six-inch scale in 
 1840, and abandonment of all the previous unengraved work for the one- 
 inch map in England as well as in Scotland. 
 
25 
 
 Had the arrangement with the Treasury in 1851—which was never 
 rescinded or altered, except in the cases of Fife and Haddington, Ayr and 
 Dumfries, if indeed in the latter—been followed out, as it appears it was, 
 the one-inch map ought to have made a rapid advance in five years, and 
 then there was nothing to have prevented the full employment of draughts¬ 
 men and engravers, as well as surveyors, in the “ great organized sub¬ 
 division of labour,” which had been established upon the one-inch map, 
 and it alone, during all that period. 
 
 I must conclude the history of these extraordinary proceedings. Lord 
 Elcho, the proposer and head of the Committee which condemned the six- 
 inch, and in appearance restored the ascendency of the one-inch scale, on 
 consulting Colonel Dawson, quickly apprehended his reasons, and adopted 
 his views in favour of a much larger scale; and on the very day after the 
 date of the last Treasury minute—the iron required to be struck while it 
 was hot—on the 16th of April, at the Colonel’s suggestion, was issued the 
 Treasury circular to public departments, and to professional men, to all 
 whose opinion was considered valuable, and who were most likely to aid the 
 Government with sound advice as to the scale or scales which should be 
 adopted. The result was a triumph to Colonel Dawson. Of 152 opinions, 
 32 only were in favour of the six-inch scale, and 120 in favour of a 
 larger ; the majority advocating a 24 or 26f-inches to the mile scale. 
 
 We all know how much a professional opinion depends upon the manner 
 of stating the question; but it will be acknowledged that the existing state 
 of matters was very fairly and fully put before the parties whose opinion 
 was asked, and it would be as unfair as ungracious to surmise, either that 
 parties were selected because they were favourable to the Ordnance view, 
 or that others were passed over from the contrary being known; all who 
 were aware of the circular could procure a copy and volunteer an opinion. 
 I myself had one sent to me, and pressing engagements at the time only 
 prevented my replying to it freely and fully. You will find the circular, 
 and the papers which accompanied it, in the Ordnance Blue Book for 1854, 
 which contains also all the replies ; a valuable mass of information on .surveys 
 and plans, and the objects, private and public, which they are meant and 
 ought to subserve. The previous correspondence, including the Duke’s 
 letter, which is worth reading, and also the reports and memoranda, on 
 which the determination of 1840 to adopt the Irish six-inch scale was 
 founded, and also expressing the opinions entertained as to the purposes 
 which an increased scale would answer, and the increased expense which it 
 would involve, accompanied the circular, which requested the parties to 
 state what scale they would recommend “ for any national surveys which 
 may henceforward be carried on at the public expense,” but “ merely 
 between the scale of six inches and any larger scale,” and on the 
 assumption “ that the results of the Ordnance sur vey will, under any 
 circumstances, be separately published on the reduced scale of one inch to 
 the mile. The questioned parties were further invited to add any special 
 observations in support of their opinions. The language of the circular 
 may be honestly interpreted as saying, “We, the Government, have 
 determined on a property plan, for sundry cogent State reasons, which 
 have been suggested to us, in executing the uncompleted portion of the 
 
26 
 
 Ordnance survey, but without at all interfering with its principal object— 
 the preparation of a national one-inch map.” “ Let us know what scale 
 you would advise such property plan to be drawn on ?” 
 
 Very few interested in land would not desire to have a property 
 survey and plan at the public expense; and every professional man, 
 if not every proprietor, knows that the scale for property purposes, 
 except where there are only “ red deer and grouse ,” ought to be larger than 
 six chains; and it is only wonderful that thirty-two individuals, whose 
 opinions were worth anything, expressed themselves favourable to that 
 scale. 
 
 The same, or rather the real question at issue, might have been put in 
 a variety of ways, with a very different result, as, “ Are there sufficient 
 public purposes to be served by a large national property plan, as to 
 warrant such being defrayed at the public expense ?” or, “ Is it incumbent 
 on the Government to provide large scale surveys and plans for general 
 private purposes, as well as for public?” or, “Assuming that it is the province 
 of the Government to make a minute survey of the country at the 
 public expense, to serve various important general private, as well as 
 public objects, and that the Ordnance, to whom this is entrusted, are to be 
 allowed to exercise their own judgment in providing the Government with 
 all that it requires, is the one-inch Ordnance map sufficient to exhibit all 
 the results, which ought to be made available to the general public ; or, 
 what larger scale is necessary in addition ?” But take another view ; put 
 the question thus : “ The survey and one-inch map of the whole United 
 Kingdom may be completed in ten years, at an outlay of <£279,972, if 
 nothing is allowed to interfere ; but this sum will be lost for every other 
 purpose, unless the national map is delayed to make a more minute survey 
 than it requires, but which is pressingly demanded, with the view of 
 carrying out several most important objects ; whether should the delay be 
 allowed, or the amount sacrificed to the one object ?” Put this question 
 to tens, or hundreds, or thousands of men capable of forming an opinion— 
 to common jurymen entrusted to decide on the interests, liberties, and 
 lives of their fellow-subjects—I am very sure that the verdict of a large 
 majority, if it were not unanimous, would be in favour of proceeding with 
 the national one-inch map, even at the total sacrifice of £280,000. 
 
 But to resume our history. On the majority of the 152 British savans 
 having decided in favour of the 24 or 26-inch scale, Colonel Dawson 
 suggested to the Treasury that, instead of taking either of these, it would 
 be better to follow the recommendation of the statistical conference at 
 Brussels, and adopt a decimal proportion intermediate between the two, having 
 reference, not to inches or miles, or any conventional unit of measure, but 
 to the actual linear measurement of the ground, as the ^ of nature 
 (or nearly equivalent to 251 inches to a mile), which appeared the nearest 
 and best, and which, by a strange coincidence, showing the unanimity of 
 carefully trained minds, was the actual scale unanimously agreed to at the 
 Brussels conference of 1853, which represented twenty-six European 
 States. 
 
 A second circular was then sent on the 16th of January, 1854, to the 
 
27 
 
 majority including, at the suggestion of Sir Charles Trevelyan, 100 others, 
 engineers and surveyors, as it was now considered a professional question, 
 in regard to the size of the large scale to he used, and, in particular, with 
 reference to this decimal proportional one of nature. 
 
 The answer was in favour of the scale of of nature, and that its 
 decimal character would not he productive of any practical inconvenience— 
 in the opinion of Colonel Dawson, and also of Sir John Burgoyne, 
 Inspector General of Fortifications ; Mr. Blamire, Tithe and Enclosure 
 Commissioner ; and Mr. Bendel, civil engineer, to whom, as a Committee, 
 the Treasury submitted the replies to the second circular. These answers 
 recommend the -g-gVs or 25 s, popularly termed the 25-inch scale for the 
 draft plans, and that the published map should be one-half the size, or 
 or 121 inches to a mile. 
 
 The Treasury, then, by a minute, dated 15th July, 1854, sanctioned 
 the laying down of Ayr and Dumfriesshire on this scale of 1 to 2,500; 
 and by the same minute “ My Lords are also of opinion that until a final 
 determination shall he arrived at as to the scale upon which the Ordnance 
 survey shall be conducted and engraved, the course which has been 
 authorized in reference to Ayr and Dumfriesshire shall be applied to the 
 survey of other districtsbut, still sceptical as to the difference of 
 expense, they delayed adopting this as a general measure till they 
 ascertained, by actual experiment, the increased cost of such surveys and 
 maps in comparison with those to the six-inch scale, and they desired trial 
 to be made, in the survey of the rural districts, of the system of piece-work, 
 within the department, and that of independent contracts with other 
 surveyors, supervised and approved by officers of the Ordnance. The 
 subject of contouring was referred to a special Commission, under the 
 direction of Lord Ellesmere and Sir John Burgoyne, and which included 
 both the late and the present Directors General of the Geological Survey; 
 who reported on the 20th July, 1854, in favour of a modified system of 
 contouring in conjunction with hill sketching on artistic principles, and 
 with levels taken and marked on certain principal lines and prominent 
 points, and volunteered a suggestion that there should be a published map 
 on the six-inch scale, or some other intermediate one between the large 
 draft plan and the one-inch map. 
 
 Such is a sketch of the history of the Ordnance Survey, and such was 
 the state of matters up to the appointment of Colonel James as superin¬ 
 tendent, on the 11th August, 1854. 
 
 On the 18th May, 1855, the Treasury, on Colonel James submitting a 
 memorandum as to engraving the Ordnance maps of Scotland, which 
 required immediate attention, but before receiving his report on the com¬ 
 parative expense of the six and 25-inch scales, and the result of piece 
 and contract work, recorded the following minute :— 
 
 “ After a careful consideration of the subject, my Lords have arrived 
 at the following conclusions :— 
 
 “ 1. That it is unnecessary to have plans of the Highlands and exten¬ 
 sive moorland tracts, as well as other uncultivated districts, made on the 
 scale of 2 A 0 ; that the said scale shall be limited to the populous, mineral. 
 
28 
 
 and cultivated districts; and that the superintendent of the survey, acting 
 according to these general rules, should exercise his discretion as to the 
 districts, the plans of which are to be made to this scale. 
 
 “ 2. That plans on the -awo should not be engraved, but that copies, 
 when wanted, should be made by the anastatic process, with reference 
 books, in which the area of each inclosure would be given. 
 
 “ 3. That the Highland, and other partially cultivated and thinly 
 peopled districts should be drawn on the scale of six inches to the mile, 
 and copies, when wanted, should be made by the anastatic process. 
 
 “4. That the general map of Scotland, on the scale of one inch to the 
 mile, should be proceeded with as rapidly as possible. 
 
 “5. That the plans of towns containing more than 4,000 inhabitants, 
 which have hitherto been drawn on the scale of five feet to a mile, should 
 be drawn on the scale of 5 -^ of the linear measure, which is equivalent 
 to 126’72 inches to the mile. 
 
 “ 6 . That local contributions should not be required in aid of the 
 survey, except in the case of special surveys, made in districts in which 
 the general survey is not in progress.” 
 
 Colonel James, in a report dated 30th June, 1855, expresses his con¬ 
 viction of the judicious course followed by the Treasury in the preceding 
 resolutions, as regards the scales for the MS. plans, and his entire con¬ 
 currence with the 3rd, applying the six-inch to the Highlands, &c., but 
 he recommends:— 
 
 1st. That the aws plans reduced, and engraved on the six-inch 
 scale, to make each county uniform and perfect on that scale; also—(I 
 only give the substance)— 
 
 Because it is of importance to represent each property on one connected 
 map, and if there is a different scale for cultivated and uncultivated lands, 
 from the irregularity of the portions of each, we shall have no perfect 
 plans of parishes, properties, or farms so circumstanced, and I feel certain 
 that this will cause inconvenience, and make it almost impossible to use 
 the plans for registration or sale, &c. So, also, when cultivated and 
 uncultivated land occurs along coasts, there will be no continuous survey 
 nor continuous maps through the country. 
 
 The 25-inch plans, “except for reference for acres,” are as much 
 too large as the one-inch is too small. The number of sheets, even 
 for a single parish, if put together, “ make the plans inconveniently 
 large and extremely unwieldy.” “ The information they give requires to 
 be condensed to a smaller size,” even the smallest upon which every¬ 
 thing can be properly represented to scale; and this, we know from 
 experience, is the scale of six inches to a mile. 
 
 2nd. That the boundaries of each separate property in land and houses 
 should, as they could with such a series of maps, be authoritatively deter¬ 
 mined and indicated under an Act of Parliament, as in the case of the 
 Irish boundary department, the counties, perhaps, paying the expense of 
 demarking, but without contemplating any compulsory investigation into 
 the titles of property. 
 
 The whole of this paper (Appendix No. 2, Report 1856), of which 
 I have only given the substance of part, is well worth perusal. It was 
 
29 
 
 submitted to Lord Panmure, by the Inspector General of Fortifications, to 
 whom it was addressed, and, concurring in its arguments, his lordship 
 forwarded it to the Lords of the Treasury on the 1st August, 1855, and 
 wrote, recommending it to their favourable consideration. His lordship, 
 approving of the view, that the 25-inch scale, however necessary for 
 portions of the country, should not supersede the production of a six-inch 
 map for the same districts ; and seeing the advantage of a uniform scale, 
 and the great difficulty of drawing a line between the “partial” 25-inch 
 scale districts and those for which the six is sufficient, gives it as his own 
 opinion, that no part of the former should be engraved or lithographed 
 until the sense of Parliament is expressed as to an extension of that scale 
 beyond its present experimental limits; but that Colonel James should be 
 authorized to engrave and publish maps for such districts, reduced to the 
 six-inch scale. 
 
 On the 4th of February, 1856, he (Colonel James) reported—“ 1st. That 
 the cost of the manuscript 25-inch plan was 12d.,that of the six-inch 9Jd. 
 per acre, but that he expected to reduce the former to lid., making a 
 difference of only lfd. 
 
 “ 2nd. That the system of piece-work within the department can be 
 advantageously adopted, and that it diminishes the cost and accelerates 
 the work, and proportionally lessens the cost of superintendence and other 
 attendant expenses. 
 
 “ 3rd. That the trial of the system of independent contracts is unsatis¬ 
 factory. That some of the contractors failed to execute the surveys 
 contracted for: that many of the plans were so badly and inaccurately 
 executed that they had to be rejected, while the plans which were accepted 
 are, at the rates paid for them, quite as expensive (the average being 12d.), 
 as those drawn in the department, and some of the contractors say that 
 they would not undertake the same work again at the same rates.” 
 
 On the 3rd March, 1856, the select Committee to consider the Ord¬ 
 nance survey of Scotland was appointed—Viscount Duncan, Chairman. 
 After sitting four days and examining fourteen witnesses, they reported 
 to the House on the 6th May, Mr. Ellice and Mr. Denison dissenting. 
 This report you have in full in the Blue Book of that year, with the 
 minutes of evidence, and also the report proposed to be substituted by 
 Mr. Ellice. His recommendations are almost an echo of the decision of 
 Lord Elcho’s Committee in 1851; but he clearly elucidates and strength¬ 
 ens his views by arguments culled from the evidence, and he states that 
 they will only be effected in point of expenditure, should the Government, 
 with the sanction of Parliament, adopt a system of property survey as 
 a general measure, and appoint a permanent staff to maintain its 
 efficiency. On the contrary, the report of the Committee, of which 
 Lord Elcho was a member, is decisive in favour of the -atVo or 25-inch 
 scale for a cadastral survey of the country, “ from the great advantages 
 which may be anticipated from the prosecution and completion of such 
 a national work, on principles which have already been successfully 
 acted upon in the surveys of France, Bavaria, Switzerland, and other 
 countries-of Europe.” In short, they entirely homologate Colonel James’ 
 proceedings and conduct of the Ordnance survey of Scotland, and “ feel 
 
30 
 
 that his recommendations, backed as they are by the opinion of a great 
 number of eminent men, are those which they can reasonably and safely 
 propose for the adoption of your honourable House.” 
 
 One hundred and seventy-two Members of the honourable House 
 thought differently, according to Lord Palmerston’s interpretation of the 
 vote of the 18th June, 1857, on the motion of Sir C. D. Norreys, the 
 honourable Member for Mallo. 
 
 In consequence, a Royal Commission was issued by Lord Panmure, on 
 the 24th December following, to Lord Wrottesley, President of the Royal 
 Society, and nine other right trusty and well-beloved Councillors and 
 eminent men, to report upon:—1st. The principal purposes which the 
 national survey should subserve. 2nd. Its progress, and the scales on 
 which the maps have been drawn and published. 3rd. Any change 
 which should be made on the scales or on any details of the survey. 
 4th. The estimated cost of completion in the manner recommended for 
 adoption. 
 
 This Commission sat for three days, and agreed to a report on the 20th 
 May, 1858, under the hands of 
 
 LORD WROTTESLEY, 
 
 LORD ROSSE, 
 
 LORD BROUGHAM AND YAUX, 
 
 SIR GEORGE J. TURNER, 
 
 E. CARDWELL, M.P. 
 
 GEORGE B. AIRY, ASTRONOMER ROYAL, 
 COLONEL CAMERON, 
 
 SIR RICHARD GRIFFITH, 
 
 Me. I. KINGDOM BRUNEL, and' 
 
 Me. C. B. VIGNOLES, 
 
 Civil Engineers. 
 
 Lord President McNeill, the only other member, did not attend, as he 
 ought to have done, to represent Scotland. 
 
 The only witnesses adduced before this Committee, besides the pro¬ 
 fessional ones, Colonel James and Colonel Dawson—who merely repeated 
 and explained the progress of the survey and mode of conducting operations, 
 as they had formerly done, and enforced the sentiments they had enunciated 
 before the Committee of 1856—were Sir Fitzroy Kelly, Mr. Coulson, and 
 Undistinguished witness Mr. Henry Warburton. 
 
 Sir Fitzroy Kelly gives some valuable information, rather unwillingly, 
 as to boundaries and registration of properties; but he baffled all attempts 
 to obtain even an 44 inkling ” of the views of the newly-formed Govern¬ 
 ment as to any contemplated measure touching the latter. 
 
 Mr. Coulson, Queen’s Counsel, conveyancer, and drawer of Acts of Par¬ 
 liament for the Government, and above all, a man who had given attention 
 to the subject of registration for three years, as a. commissioner on the 
 question, displays no little practical knowledge, and gives much useful infor¬ 
 mation as to the use of, if not the necessity for, maps, whether public or 
 private, on a large scale, for the sale and transfer, as well as registration of 
 land. 
 
 The distinguished witness and disciple of Bentham rather broke down, 
 and afforded the Commission more amusement than instruction. He had 
 
31 
 
 been a member of the Committee of the Commons which had rejected the 
 Tithe Commission and Memorial, in 1836, but had expressed himself so 
 favourable to the large scale, for the purpose of registration, that Colonel 
 James, in his 1856 evidence, had quoted his words, and adopted his senti¬ 
 ments. But although he stated that his opinions remained unchanged, he 
 had forgotten the scale he contended for, and did not know that on which 
 the survey was being conducted. 
 
 On being told of this, and reminded, very good-naturedly, by Mr. 
 Yignoles, as to the different objects of a national survey, his memory was 
 refreshed, and with little hesitation he pronounced these objects all public, 
 and all important, and became quite eloquent on the simplicity, “ where 
 there’s a will,” of ascertaining and laying down boundaries, and on the 
 advantage of having this done ; but suddenly sunk below zero, when he 
 frankly acknowledged that his experience was as a trustee, and extended 
 to determining the breadth of a boundary lane in that capacity. 
 
 He must have rather disturbed the gravity of the Lord Justice Turner, 
 on telling him, when pressed to give a reason for the faith that was in him, 
 and asked why a large map would be beneficial for conveying land, “ Put 
 yourself in the position of Herodotus seeking to give an account of the 
 configuration of the quarters of the earth without maps!! ” He has, how¬ 
 ever, the merit, not of inventing, but of recalling Captain Colby’s inven¬ 
 tion of a French term, so expressive as to be at once adopted by the 
 Commission, and which henceforth will become an English synonym, “ au 
 courant ,” which being interpreted, means the constant employment of the 
 whole Ordnance staff, after the completion of the survey to the end of time, 
 —in recording the wonderful changes which it works even, as Sir Fitzroy 
 explained, to the converting water into wood and wood into water, and 
 both into rich cultivated fields, or busy marts of commerce. 
 
 This Commission seems to have come to a unanimous opinion, except on 
 one point, the extension of the cadastral survey to the whole United King¬ 
 dom, if not also on that, although they modestly, considering the expendi¬ 
 ture it involves, leave its final decision to the combined legislature. The 
 report embodies their views on the points submitted, with the conciseness, 
 yet clearness and fulness, which might be expected of such a body, with 
 Lord Wrottesley at its head. They give the evidence in full; and add a 
 valuable appendix derived from Colonel James and others. 
 
 They propose no change either on the scales or in any details, from 
 which it may be inferred that they entirely approved of both as practised 
 by the present able superintendent—who receives only his due meed of 
 praise,—up to the 18th of June, 1857, when the adverse vote in the Com¬ 
 mons necessitated a change, and brought on a chaos, which must continue 
 to envelop his proceedings till the meeting of Parliament, when, it is to be 
 hoped, the question will receive a final solution, without waiting for any 
 contemplated measures being adopted. 
 
 The actual recommendations of the Committee are shortly recapitulated 
 as follows:— 
 
 1st. That the one-inch map of the United Kingdom be forthwith com¬ 
 pleted, engraved, and published. 
 
32 
 
 2nd. That the survey of the Northern counties of England, and of the 
 counties of Scotland, proceed contemporaneously, and be completed and 
 published ; the cultivated districts on the y's'o o scale, and the whole on the 
 six-inch and the one-inch scales, except the Highlands of Scotland, which 
 are to be surveyed for the one-inch scale only. 
 
 3rd. That the revision of the six-inch plans of Ireland be completed. 
 
 4th. The final determination of the question, as to the expediency of 
 extending the survey on the 2 - 5 V 0 scale to whole of the United King¬ 
 dom, or the whole of the United Kingdom except Ireland, to be left 
 to the decision of the Legislature, when the contemplated measures, 
 with which it is more immediately connected, may have been adopted. 
 
 May 20M, 1858. 
 
 I have now sketched the history and progress of the Ordnance Survey, 
 from its commencement, in 1793, to the present time, at greater length 
 than I had at all intended. I will proceed to give you my views as to the 
 scales, and the objects which may demand from the nation a more minute 
 survey, and a larger scale than the general one-inch map furnishes, and state 
 the mode by which these may he subserved ultimately, as well as the pro¬ 
 cedure which I would recommend to be followed, under existing circum¬ 
 stances; which may furnish you with some hints, in your legislative 
 capacity, when the question comes to be debated in Parliament. 
 
 *1 conclude this section with a report by Colonel Colby, which more 
 particularly details the Ordnance proceedings up to its date in 1843. It 
 forms part of a Parliamentary return dated 1st May, 1843, obtained on 
 the motion of Mr. Smollett, the then member for Dumbartonshire. 
 
 “ In 1809, the principal triangulation commenced in Scotland, but was 
 discontinued during the years 1810, 1811, 1812, to enable the persons 
 who had been employed there, to carry forward the subordinate triangula¬ 
 tion required for constructing the detail maps in South Britain. In 1813, 
 the Ordnance zenith sector was used on the stations of Kellie Law, in 
 Fifeshire, and Cowhythe Hill, Banffshire. These observations were pub¬ 
 lished in 1842. In the years 1814, 1815, 1816, the principal triangula¬ 
 tion proceeded steadily in Scotland. In 1817, the Ordnance zenith sector 
 was used on Batta Island, in Zetland (observations published in 1842); 
 a new base line was measured on Belhelvie Links, near Aberdeen, and the 
 principal triangulation proceeded during this year and the years 1818, 
 1819, in Scotland. In the year 1820, the principal triangulation was 
 suspended, but recommenced in Zetland, Orkney, and Western Isles of 
 Scotland, in 1821, and was also carried on in those districts during 1822. 
 In 1823, the use of the large theodolite being requisite to proceed with the 
 principal triangulation in South Britain, the Scottish triangulation was 
 unavoidably deferred, and the subsequent urgent demand for the comple¬ 
 tion of a survey of Ireland, prevented the resumption of the principal 
 triangulation of Scotland until 1838. In the years 1838, 1839, 
 1840, and 1841, the principal triangulation for connecting the islands with 
 each other, and with the main land of Scotland, proceeded steadily, many 
 new objects were erected, and the old stationary objects, which had 
 
33 
 
 formerly been observed, were mostly identified and repaired. Though these 
 objects had only recently come under the protection of Act 4 and 5 Victoria, 
 cap. 30, the general knowledge of the utility of a correct survey in Scotland, 
 had induced the inhabitants to prevent their destruction. The principal trian¬ 
 gulation in Scotland is now so far advanced, that the secondary triangulation, 
 detail survey, and engraving, might be put in course of progress as soon 
 as sufficient funds to carry them forward could be devoted to these objects; 
 but any premature effort to commence the secondary triangulation and 
 detail survey in Scotland, before funds could be granted sufficient to 
 carry them forward with vigour, would only end in extra expense and 
 ultimate disappointment. 
 
 “ In 1819, a military detail survey of part of the counties of Wigton and 
 Ayr, was commenced upon a scale of two inches to a mile, by Captain Hobbs, 
 and three subalterns of the Royal Engineers. This survey continued, with 
 diminishing numbers, through the years 1820, 1821,1822, 1823, 1824, 
 1825, 1826, and 1827, and it extended altogether over a space of about 
 937 square miles. But a survey carried on at so slow a rate, and so small 
 a scale, afforded no proper ground for commencing a map of Scotland ; and 
 these plans, on so small a scale, will furnish no aid whatever in carrying 
 forward the proposed survey for general purposes, with the degree of accu¬ 
 racy suited to the present wants of the country. 
 
 “ The time required for the completion and publication of the survey of 
 Scotland will be guided by the amount which can be annually granted for 
 that service. If these amounts are small in comparison with the magnitude 
 of the undertaking, the progress will be slow, unsatisfactory, and costly, 
 from the extra quantity of superintendence which spreading the work over 
 a large number of years would involve ; and if the amount of the votes 
 be regulated according to the Honourable Board’s order of the 22nd 
 of March, 1843, the survey of Scotland cannot be expected to be com¬ 
 pleted in less than twenty years. 
 
 (Signed.) “THOMAS COLBY, 
 
 “ Colonel Royal Engineers.” 
 
 “April 21 st, 1843.” 
 
 You will see that this document confirms some of my preceding state¬ 
 ments, and explains others in greater detail. 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 III.—SCALES OF PLANS AND MAPS. 
 
 Colonel James states, in his evidence, that he has never expressed his 
 own individual opinion as to the scales which should be made use of in 
 surveying, plotting, and publishing, for national purposes; hut he clearly 
 indicates his desire to have every survey so minute as to display the whole 
 surface of the ground in its cultivated and artificial dress, as well as in all 
 its variety of natural feature ; that these should be laid down on paper on 
 a large or a small scale, according as they are rich or poor, varied or 
 plain ; and that the result should be given to the public, on such a uniform 
 common scale as will combine and exhibit the whole in one view. He 
 gives us, too, in Appendix No. 10, the scales now being used for laying 
 down the Ordnance surveys ; and having, as superintendent, adopted these 
 without remonstrance, or even objection, we must presume that they meet 
 with his cordial approval. 
 
 Beversing the order in which he states them, they are as follows:— 
 
 1. Kingdom, one inch to one mile. 
 
 2. Counties, six-inch scale. 
 
 3. Parishes (the cultivated districts of) on the °f nature, or 
 
 25*344 inches to a mile ; or, in Colonel James’ own words, “ one square 
 inch to one acre.” 
 
 4. Towns, 5-^0 of nature, or ten feet six inches to a mile. 
 
 It may be granted as an axiom in plan-making, whether for private or 
 national objects, in accordance with this Ordnance scale of scales, that no 
 one scale will suit all the ground within an ordinary estate, or a kingdom 
 —which is but an aggregate of estates—or answer every purpose for which 
 a plan may he required ; and therefore another axiom, a geometric one, 
 “ the greater includes the less,” must be reversed, “ the less must include 
 the greater.” The scale of the village or city plan must be so large that it 
 cannot comprehend moor and mountain, and therefore, to show all rela¬ 
 tively and uniformly, the small scale survey of the last must include the 
 large scale survey of the two former. It must also be within such a size 
 as to be capable of easy inspection in its length and breadth. But is this 
 the case with regard to the maps on these Ordnance scales, or any one of 
 them ? They are all too large for the respective purposes they profess to 
 serve; while the largest, ten feet to a mile, is too small adequately to 
 exhibit what is attempted to be shown even on the smallest, and still less 
 to represent all the features, natural, economical, and artificial of some 
 localities. Nothing short of the scale of nature would suffice for all; if, 
 indeed, in some cases, we should not require to imitate the ancients, in 
 their representations of the human form, and make colossi. Colonel 
 James is at great trouble to convince the Committee that, having made all 
 the measurements, he can actually lay down to any scale, even to that of 
 nature ! that is, having measured a field or house, he can lay down another 
 field or house of exactly the same size ! And he has convinced them that a 
 plan may be reduced, but cannot be accurately enlarged ; for they announce 
 tfie fact as a new discovery in their Beport; but he may be required 
 
35 
 
 to explain how he can get over the infringement of this principle, by en¬ 
 larging nature, and what plan he will take to do so with Southampton 
 correctness. 
 
 The one-inch map of the United Kingdom will measure 66 feet by 46 
 feet, and is too large for inspection, as few palaces could afford space to 
 exhibit it. 
 
 The one-inch scale is sufficiently large for an ordinary county, which 
 on the six-inch scale, as is proposed, has the same disadvantage as the 
 kingdom on the one-inch. The map of the county of Inverness on the 
 larger, or six-inch scale, would cover an area of more than 42 feet by 
 29 feet. As to the 25-inch scale for parishes, it is as ridiculously absurd. 
 In those parishes, of even ordinary size, not every house could admit the 
 plan within its portals, except in sheets ; and we know that some estates 
 extend over one or two, or even several, large parishes. 
 
 For towns, ten feet to a mile may be necessary ; but, if so, it is equally 
 required for those under, as above, 4000 inhabitants. Every city cor¬ 
 poration will be put to the expense of erecting a hall sufficiently large 
 for the reception and display of the city plan. 
 
 “ Registration of property is the test of scalewhatever is suitable 
 and proper for it, is so for every other purpose: so says the distinguished 
 witness, and so echoes Colonel James. Registration demands the large 
 scale for towns; and there is house property in every hamlet in the 
 kingdom—therefore, nothing less will do for the whole. Every property 
 must be shown, and all in their proper place, on the ten feet to a mile 
 scale. Fancy a map of the kingdom to this scale, which, mark, is only 
 the 500th of nature. It would furnish sails, and tarpaulins to boot, for 
 half-a-dozen Great Easterns. One of the main difficulties of a registration 
 measure is the cost of providing buildings for the reception of the required 
 maps ; but for a ten-feet scale map of the kingdom, which would cover 
 eleven hundred and sixteen acres, the Government would require 
 to purchase an estate expressly for the purpose—Windsor Forest, even 
 if her Majesty would graciously give it up, would not do—and employ 
 half-a-dozen Sir Josephs to roof it in, for the purpose of exhibiting and 
 preserving this “ Registration Map.” Even then perfection would not be 
 reached. This monster map would not serve for every purpose or for 
 every property. The law maxim, 44 A centro usque ad coelum,” does not 
 hold in every case. There are mines, below the earth, which belong to a 
 proprietor different from the owner of the surface; and Sir Fitzroy Kelly 
 has, in his evidence, drawn attention to the fact, that several different 
 proprietors tower right above one another in flats of houses, from the 
 ground floor to the attic. Therefore nothing will do but a model, on some 
 enormous scale, far exceeding ten feet to a mile ; or, to make things com¬ 
 plete, a duplicate of nature and art. To make the first, the sacrifice of 
 Ireland or Scotland would do for the rest of the kingdom • but for the 
 last, nothing less than the appropriation of one of Britain’s numerous 
 colonies would suffice. No other practical difficulty would interfere with 
 the carrying out of this grand idea, which, no doubt, has occurred to 
 Colonel James, and I only wonder he has not propounded it; for he tells 
 the Committee that on his system of contours, which Colonel Dawson has 
 
 d 2 
 
36 
 
 very unbrotherly knocked on the head, he could make a model of every 
 estate on the island, and actually did make one of a part of Ireland. 
 He has the conception, the tools, and the data; all that is required is the 
 material, which the Paris basin would scarcely supply. 
 
 You may think I am now trifling, or attempting to indulge in a Rus- 
 kinian flight. I merely wish to show that, however unlimited may be the 
 human mind, which can as easily conceive an atom as it can soar through 
 the realms of space, although it cannot measure the one or make a diagram 
 of the other, and however we may yearn after perfection, even in plan¬ 
 making, so long as we have to deal with matter or substance, within the 
 grasp of man’s outward senses, we are forced to limit our operations, if 
 not our speculations, to what is practical, and frequently to sacrifice 
 symmetry to convenience, and be content with approximations. This, 
 according to Lord Macaulay, has been the distinguishing feature of England’s 
 legislation ; and though, perhaps, carried to a fault, and clogging our pro¬ 
 gress, is the secret of our steady advancement, with so little retrogression, 
 in the scale of nations. 
 
 1. Kingdom, one-inch Scale .—This is, as I have said, too large a scale, 
 and aims at too minute a representation for the practical use and exhibition 
 required by a general map, even of our little island. The adoption, too, of 
 the continental scale of of nature destroys its symmetry and proportion. 
 
 The Ordnance are aware of this, and, no doubt, meditate condemning it, even 
 before completion, as soon as the large decimal scale is sanctioned for the 
 whole of the kingdom. They will then substitute the French topographical 
 scale of sw.ooo"* or O'792 of an inch, and also the geographical one of 
 T 2 o, 1 o‘o^» or 0*198 of an inch. It is fifty-seven years too late to think of 
 this, but it is never too late to mend; and when the new survey of the 
 whole kingdom is finished, let us adapt all the other smaller scales to the 
 symmetry of this Brussels perfect model one; but not till then. We 
 have finished some four-fifths of the country on this one-inch scale ; 
 common practical wisdom requires the completion of the remaining 
 fraction, and the adjustment of the other scales to multiples of it, as was 
 contemplated by General Roy; and which should have been persisted in 
 till the survey, of which he measured the base, was finished. The 
 one-inch map would be the topographical map of each of the three 
 portions of the kingdom, England, Scotland, and Ireland; and their 
 relative positions, could be shown in connexion by a useful general 
 map of the whole to 0*500 of an inch, or half the size—call it the 
 geographical map. This should yet be done, on a correct projection, 
 from the original angles and measurements, with all the advantages of 
 Colonel James’ scientific labours, and then published by the Government, 
 without being left to the careless preparations of private publishers; 
 although either Mr. Wyld, or Mr. Keith Johnstone, if freely allowed the 
 use of all the Ordnance materials, would no doubt do it ample justice. 
 
 The original two-inch survey, or whatever one is adopted, would then 
 form a useful and portable county map, not exhibiting greater detail than 
 its one-inch reduction, but everything more clear and distinct, as also 
 more correct, from its being published on the scale to which it had been 
 plotted. When the Tithe Commutation, or any general measure, required 
 
37 
 
 and demanded greater minuteness on a large scale, the Government ought 
 to have complied, and sanctioned the five-chain scale (or one-sixteenth of a 
 mile to an inch, and the 3 -^ ^ - of nature), which is found practically to be 
 ample for laying down and calculating the area of everything except house 
 property,—and they should now do so, if any similar occasion offers itself. 
 The reduction of this to a fourth, which would be ajso one-fourth of a mile 
 to the inch (the exact mean), would have suited well for a parochial atlas, 
 and been admirably adapted for the hydrographical coast survey, as well as 
 for the exhibition of important geological details. If the health of towns 
 called for their survey, one-and-a-fourth chains (four times the size of the 
 field survey, or one-sixty-fourth of a mile to an inch) would have been 
 large enough for everything outside the houses ; and if it were incumbent 
 to show the interior subdivision, as is now being done, double the size or 
 Y^g- of a mile to the inch would surely have sufficed even for this. Thus 
 each and all of the scales for every conceivable purpose would have been 
 aliquot parts of each other, and having that proportion, we could derive all 
 the practical benefit of comparing estates, not merely with each other, but 
 with the whole parish, every parish with the whole county, and every 
 county with its own kingdom, and the three kingdoms with each other, 
 and with the whole united under one Gracious Queen. 
 
 This we cannot do, even with properties in the same parish, when they 
 are too bulky to be put together on one sheet, and still less when the 
 cultivated is on one scale and the mountain on another; or when the 
 parishes are on the o' °f nature, the counties on the six-inch scale, and 
 the kingdoms on one-inch. 
 
 The five-chain scale, or 16 inches to a mile, can be judged of as the 
 -3--9V0 of nature with every advantage that the 25J, or yto "o has, so far as 
 we are concerned, within our own country. The superiority of the latter 
 scale consists only in comparing Britain with foreign States who have 
 adopted it as a universal language of scales, —like the Arab numerals as 
 that of number,—which should not he despised when all England comes to 
 be re-surveyed. Some, however, may then ask, Are we to give or take the 
 law ? and is it not sufficient to adapt our geographical map to the conti¬ 
 nental taste ? Our maritime situation may require a larger scale, without 
 which justice would not be done to the labours of our hydrographers. 
 
 2. County Map. —The original two-inch survey possesses advantages 
 over the one-inch, besides that of size, and it dispenses with the exagge¬ 
 ration of lines and small objects, inseparable from the attempted minuteness 
 of the smaller scale, although far short of what Has been actually attained 
 in the plotted manuscript. It should be preserved in that state for the 
 great purpose of registration and transfer of landed estates, for which, 
 until you descend to small freeholds requiring the town survey, it is better 
 adapted and more generally applicable than Mr. Coulson and others seem 
 at all aware ; indeed, this may be said of the one-inch map, as published 
 by the Ordnance. Take any sheet, and you will see that every road, 
 every rivulet, every clump of wood—nay, every garden, and almost every 
 house, though somewhat exaggerated in breadth, is distinctly marked. 
 Look at No. 7, containing two-thirds of London (a little forethought, I 
 think, might have arranged to include the whole of the capital on the same 
 
38 
 
 sheet), all the bridges and the main thoroughfares are clearly traced, and 
 distinctly visible without the aid of a glass, as are all the squares, the 
 parks, and gardensRegent’s Park, with its geological and botanic 
 gardens and its long, straight, shady walk (now partly obliterated) ; Hyde 
 Park, with its Serpentine and several royal gates; the Green Park, with 
 its reservoir close to Piccadilly ; St. James’, with its duck pond, but with¬ 
 out its bridge and other recent improvements ; and even St. Paul’s, with 
 its churchyard (which only measures four acres), cathedral and all. 
 
 And yet a map with all this minuteness, Mr. Coulson tells us, is of no use 
 for registration purposes. I fear Mr. Coulson’s experience has to do with 
 small estates ; and yet not with the smallest; for what the one-inch map 
 cannot accomplish, he tells us the twenty-five inch is amply sufficient for. 
 A square inch—an inch in length and an inch in breadth—is not a very 
 small object for the human eye. I think it was the size which a Chan¬ 
 cellor of the Exchequer fixed for the letters of the name of a party claiming 
 exemption of his dog-cart from carriage tax ; that is, the size which 
 could be read by the tax-gatherer, while a vehicle was whirling past him 
 along the road at ten miles an hour. This, by no means paltry space on 
 a one-inch map, contains no more than 640 acres, and the fourth of that— 
 160 acres, or the quarter of an inch—could without any confusion be 
 shown and made distinctly visible. But take only the larger; surely every 
 property above 640 acres, for every purpose of registration and identifica¬ 
 tion, might be laid down side by side with its neighbours of similar size, 
 or in the centre of another, containing as many thousands of acres. Be¬ 
 sides, an inch on the five feet to a mile scale contains only 28f perches 
 (the or 10 feet only 6f), and the same extent of paper represents an 
 acre nearly (not exactly as is stated) on the 2 -^-q, or twenty-five inch 
 scale ; and Mr. Coulson should know that there are more properties under 
 an acre in suburban districts, and many more under 28 perches in cities, 
 than there are estates of a size between one acre and 640 acres. In some 
 cities, as in Edinburgh, even 5 perches is a large ground area, and costs a 
 large ground annual, when the ground rent of the “ feu,” or building lease, 
 exceeds <£1000 or even <£2000 per acre, as it does in some parts of the 
 “ New Town.” 
 
 The sixty thousand townlands of Ireland, averaging from 200 to 1000 
 acres, might have been all represented on the one-inch map ; and also all 
 the properties of England and Scotland above that size. At any rate, the 
 county boundaries, and parish boundaries, and even the parliamentary 
 burgh boundaries, are capable of being all distinctly represented on that 
 scale, and ought to be so on the published maps. Colonel James states 
 that there is an Act of Parliament giving the Ordnance the power of ascer¬ 
 taining and fixing the boundaries of parishes; and if he had this power, 
 and had used it in Scotland since he assumed office, he w T ould have saved 
 thousands of pounds spent in litigation, arising out of undefined and dis¬ 
 puted parochial boundaries under the new Poor Law. But if Colonel James 
 alludes to the 4 & 5 Yict. c. 30, 1841, and I am not aware of any other 
 Act on the subject, he overrates the powers it confers. It is called an Act 
 to authorise and facilitate the completion of a survey of Great Britain, 
 Berwick-upon-Tweed, and the Isle of Man ; and, expiring in five years 
 
39 
 
 from 1841, was then, and has since, from time to time, been con¬ 
 tinued without alteration, till 1856, the last renewal, when all the 
 powers conferred on the Master General and Board of Ordnance, were 
 henceforth vested in the Secretary for War. The principal object of this 
 Act is to require the justices at quarter sessions to appoint parties to assist 
 in ascertaining the reputed boundaries of each county, city, town, parish, 
 and burgh, of whatever kind. The clerk of peace in England, and sheriff 
 clerk in Scotland, are required to attend the Ordnance surveyors for this 
 purpose ; and power is given to enter lands and to fix permanent marks 
 when the boundaries are “ sufficiently ascertainedbut the 12th section 
 distinctly declares that the boundary or boundaries of any county or parish, 
 &c., shall not thereby be affected in any way, but that all right and title 
 of any owner or claimant, shall remain in like state and condition as 
 before the passing of the Act. 
 
 It is indeed to be deeply regretted that, after so many years of labour, and 
 so much expenditure for the express purpose of furnishing to Scotland this 
 one-inch map, so much required, and so much more generally useful than 
 all the others put together, no result has yet been attained. 
 
 And yet, even when this one-inch map was within the reach of Ireland, 
 it was intended to deprive her of it altogether. The Committee of 1826 
 positively refused to recommend it, and the Treasury resisted the re¬ 
 commendation by the select Committee of 1846, and only conceded it 
 in 1851 “because it was represented that it” (the one-inch map) “ w'as 
 necessary for the proper exhibition of the geological survey;” although 
 Colonel James tells us that one-half of the country was actually sketched 
 for the one-inch map by Colonel Dawson, as I mentioned before. 
 
 Colonel James, I think, will acknowledge that this one-inch map will be 
 the more correct if the survey is made expressly for it alone, whatever 
 scale it is plotted to, on the two-inch, or the four, or the six, which it 
 should not exceed ; and it follows, as a necessary corollary, that the larger 
 the scale to which the survey is plotted, and from which the one-inch is 
 to be reduced beyond the six-inch (as the 25-inch, which cannot be done 
 except by two operations) the less will he the accuracy, not merely of the 
 details, hut of the primary work, with every care and every scientific 
 appliance. The Director determines, generally, as to the objects which 
 are to he surveyed; but he must leave much to the discretion of his intel¬ 
 ligent assistants, who will insert neither more nor less than what can and 
 ought to be properly represented on the one-inch scale. Different from 
 this is the map obtained by repeated reductions. As the first reduction, 
 say from the 25 to the six-inch, has its own object, an exact representa¬ 
 tion of the large original without any omissions will be desired and ob¬ 
 tained ; but, if this is continued through the second operation, the result 
 will be an indistinct mass—a beautiful landscape seen through a haze— 
 London from St. Paul’s in a fog. 
 
 As a remedy, the six-inch reduction is prepared for the final one, by 
 obliterating, or “ negativing,” whatever is to he omitted; but, in such an 
 arbitrary proceeding, objects of importance may be left out, while much of 
 no consequence, but only tending to confusion, may be retained. In the 
 last beautiful Southampton one-incli productions there is a hazy appearance. 
 
40 
 
 most fatiguing to the sharpest optics, entirely proceeding from the attempt 
 to exhibit more than is required, and much more than the scale admits of. 
 
 Six-inch scale .—This scale is too large for a county map, or, as Colonel 
 James proposes it, for the purpose of exhibiting all the details of the large 
 property survey. It would, however, seem to be necessary both to the hydro- 
 grapher and the geologist; but the former uses also, so Captain Washing¬ 
 ton says, the two and the four-inch, as the intricacy and importance of his 
 work requires, as the latter should do, according to the value, or interesting 
 nature, of the geological deposit to be examined and described. It seems 
 to be a favourite with the Ordnance, and is, or was, also so with the public, 
 judging from the petitions in its favour, although it has few or no practical 
 recommendations or uses which a much smaller scale would not equally 
 suit. With the aid of a little calculation, but without having recourse to 
 any large scale survey, it has served every practical purpose in Ireland, 
 according to the very best authority, Sir Richard Griffith. 
 
 Some in England and Scotland say they would prefer the twelve-inch, and 
 others will not be satisfied unless they have both; but both these scales 
 equally interfere with the principle adopted in the selection of of 
 nature, to which they bear no exact proportion; Colonel James indeed says, 
 in 1856, in answer to the 327th question, “ From the circumstances of 
 the large plans (that is, the cultivated scale of ¥ ^ 0 - 0 ) occupying “ exactly 
 the sixteenth portion of the area of the plans on the six-inch scale,” you are 
 able to extend or check the area over which these large plans are to be drawn 
 with perfect ease, and without producing any confusion whateverthat is, 
 seemingly, that the six-inch scale is exactly a sixteenth of the -g-g 1 ^; but 
 how he makes that out I am at a loss to discover, for the •g-gVo' twenty- 
 five inches and one-third to a mile, 4*224 times the length of six-inches 
 linear, and the square of 4’224 is 17*842 ; so that any square surface, as 
 a field or a parish, represented on the larger scale, occupies nearly eighteen 
 times as great a space as it does on the lesser, and hence the latter is 
 nearly one-eighteenth of the former, instead of one-sixteenth, as Colonel 
 James well knows. He must, therefore, mean that, with the knowledge of 
 a common carpenter, he squares his sheets of different sizes to correspond 
 with the respective areas represented by the two scales. 
 
 How he does, when the boundaries won’t stretch out to his straight-lined 
 margin, he must explain, as of the advantage of the feat when achieved ! 
 
 3. P apish Maps. —Although Colonel James states that the cultivated 
 districts of parishes are to be on the 25-inch scale, he does not seem to 
 contemplate that there will be many in the north of England, or in Scot¬ 
 land, so entirely cultivated, as to require that scale for the whole, and he 
 calls in the aid of the six-inch to preserve uniformity in every parish, with¬ 
 out which he says correctly, from the mixture of cultivated and unculti¬ 
 vated tracts, “ there would be the greatest confusion possible.” Therefore 
 we may consider his parochial atlas, as well as the county one, to be on 
 the six-inch scale. 
 
 But I have shown that this scale bears no exact proportion to the -g-gVo 
 or 25 J one; and, therefore, any other scale upon which all the informa¬ 
 tion of the large plans can be distinctly condensed for all general pur¬ 
 poses would suit equally well. Colonel James says, indeed, that it ought 
 
41 
 
 to be the smallest that will suit, but adds, “ we know from experience that 
 the six-inch scale is the smallest upon which every thing can be properly 
 represented to scalebut others, whose experience is entitled to equal 
 respect, have found that the scale of four inches to the mile is amply suffi¬ 
 cient, and has other advantages, as an index and condensed map (with 
 reference numbers and letters, all as Colonel James proposes), besides being 
 much more portable, and exactly four times the size of the parent, or one- 
 inch map. 
 
 The 25J inch scale or ^ of nature. —Assuming that for other 
 purposes, besides the one-inch map, which may be denominated, by way 
 of eminence, the national survey, there is required a partial survey on a 
 larger scale, that the six, though found sufficient for Ireland, is not so for 
 England and Scotland, and that a very much larger one must be adopted 
 for these portions of the empire ; the question is, what scale ought that much 
 larger one to be ? Not certainly the largest which may be used without 
 too great trouble in handling. Colonel James would answer, as I do, the 
 one most suitable for the general description of landed estates ; the one in 
 general use, and the “ very least ” which admits of the correct calculation, 
 by scale and compasses, of small areas, say to the size of an eighth of an 
 acre—when the enlarged town scale comes into play. 
 
 There must surely be some great and peculiar advantage attending that 
 one of the °f nature selected by the continental States ; recommended 
 by Mr. Yignoles (who seems to have been its importer into England), 
 Colonel Dawson, and Colonel James, and approved by a jury of scientific men. 
 
 But what that great and peculiar advantage is, has not been told us, 
 and I am at a loss to know. It may suit some foreign conventional units 
 of measure, but it does not ours ; it is just so near making an inch to the 
 acre as to tempt some to use it as such, with considerable error on a large 
 extent; and in this comparison, and to this extent only, is it in proportion 
 to the one-inch map, which, as every one knows, although he may not 
 have read the fifth book of Euclid, if diced in inches square, would repre¬ 
 sent so many areas, not nearly but exactly , a square mile each, or 640 
 acres in nature. But will 640 square inches on the - 2 - 5 V 0 P^ an represent 
 exactly this number of acres ? No; they will represent several acres less 
 on the ground, as Colonel James must know. 
 
 I must explain this more particularly. Colonel James tells us that it 
 is incredible with what facility, expertness, and rapidity, areas may be 
 calculated by this marvellously convenient and wonder-working natural 
 scale. He says, that a common carpenter, with his rule and a glance of 
 his eye, can at once tell the area of any field on such a plan. He, as 
 others, constantly talks of this scale as the inch-to-the-acre one ; and if 
 every member of the Committee of 1856, or of the Commission of 1858, 
 were under the impression that so many inches upon it were so many 
 acres, neither more nor less, they could not be blamed. I cannot 
 think that Colonel James wished to mislead them; and, as little, that 
 he makes his calculations of the areas on that supposition; and, if 
 he does not, what advantage can he gain from the -asW sca l e in 
 particular above any other ? Could he not adapt his ingenious calcu¬ 
 lating machinery to all the larger scales alike ? If he does con- 
 
42 
 
 sider, and treat every inch as an acre, there is an error of two and a 
 quarter acres in every 625 acres. Every 625 acres of actual extent on 
 the ground, or in nature, are measured on the plan as 627^ acres, as any¬ 
 one may convince himself, who will take the trouble of making the simple 
 calculation; and if Scotland contains about twenty millions of acres, and 
 England double that extent, there will be an error of 72,000 acres in the 
 area of the former, and 144,000 in that of the latter, when it is treated to 
 the same one-twenty-five-hundredth scale of nature.* Every scale is a 
 proportion of nature, and you can make a square to represent an acre, not 
 nearly, but exactly, as easily with one scale as with another. Five chains 
 to the inch, or sixteen inches to a mile is -3 9 V 0 °f nature, and the side of 
 its square containing exactly an acre is .63245 of an inch. Three chains 
 to an inch, or 26§ inches to a mile is -a-gVg °f nature, and the side of its 
 square for an acre is 1*0541 inches; as that of the instead of 
 exactly one inch, as said, would require to be 1*00181 inches ; or to 
 allow an inch to represent on the paper exactly an imperial acre, the scale 
 would require to be 2 - nature, and not So, whatever 
 
 becomes of its beauty, the utility and convenience of this natural con¬ 
 tinental scale is not merely imaginary but deceptive. 
 
 Europe may arrange as to a common geographical scale, as it does 
 regarding the common peace of the world; but its different nations have 
 little concern with each other as to internal government, or anything 
 besides. Each will continue to have its topographical map of the size 
 suited to its peculiar genius; as it will the scale or rather scales of its 
 cadastres, or, as I would prefer to call them, its economic plans, not 
 merely according to its institutions, and the purposes they demand, but 
 also according to the variety of its surface, or the character and constitu¬ 
 tion of the “ subject ,” which has to be surveyed. 
 
 This principle is acknowledged by Colonel James and by the Eoyal 
 Commission, who both consider the one-inch ample for the Highlands of 
 Scotland, as they consider the six-inch to be so for Lowland moor and 
 mountain of both England and Scotland. The large 25-inch scale is to be 
 confined to the strictly cultivated tracts, leaving out, for the six-inch, a por¬ 
 tion of a parish or of an estate, even of a farm (so the Colonel says), if it is a 
 barren waste. How many thousands of acres now to be included in the large 
 scale, because carrying luxuriant crops, were barren wastes in Scotland, at 
 the commencement of the survey, or even only ten years ago ; and will 
 the thousands of acres which may, and no doubt will, be reclaimed in a 
 similar way, by liberal landlords and enterprising tenants, in the course of 
 the next ten years, be then advanced from the barren to the cultivated 
 scale ? 
 
 Colonel Dawson’s recommendation of the three-chain scale for the Tithe 
 
 * On the one-twenty-five-hundredth scale, one lineal inch on the paper represents 
 2500 inches, or 3*15656 chains on the ground, and therefore one square inch 
 represents the square of 3'15656 chains, or 0’996369 acres, and 20,000,000 square 
 inches or 20 million times 0‘996369 are equal to 19,927,380, instead of 20 million of 
 acres; so that 20 million of inches taken to represent so many acres gives the differ¬ 
 ence in excess, or 72,620 more than the actual measurement on the ground. 
 
43 
 
 Survey in 1836 was quite in accordance with the English professional bias in 
 its favour ; for it has always been the common scale in England for property 
 purposes, though others, both smaller and larger, have been used. From 
 being more densely studded with houses and villas, and more subdivided 
 into smaller inclosures by its millions of useless open ditches and hedge¬ 
 rows, though more generally cultivated, England may require, over a large 
 portion of its surface, as large a scale as the other divisions of the empire, 
 but what has been, in practice, found sufficient and perfectly correct, for the 
 cottar system of the south and east of Ireland, and the croft and “ runrig” 
 possessions and “ Townships M of the north and west of Scotland, would 
 surely be found ample even for its paddock system. Mr. Martley, Queen’s 
 Counsel, and Chief Commissioner of Incumbered Estates in Ireland, writes 
 the Royal Commission on the Ordnance Survey in 1858, “ The scale of 
 16 inches to the mile (that is, the five-chain scale) has been so very 
 generally adopted in Ireland, not only in surveys for the court, but in 
 private surveys ” (which he knows have been made to a very great extent), 
 “ that it would not be expedient to select any other for future surveys. ” 
 And again he says, an Ordnance survey of Ireland would be desirable on 
 a 25-inch scale, or one not less than 16 inches to the mile, to aid his 
 object to establish a system, by which uniform and perfectly accurate maps 
 on that (the sixteen-inch) scale may be produced at a moderate cost. 
 
 In Scotland the four-chain Scots was generally used before the intro¬ 
 duction of imperial standard measure in 1825; but since then, five 
 chains to an inch, or 16 inches to a mile, has been as generally substi¬ 
 tuted in cultivated districts, from being very nearly the same proportional 
 scale of nature as the four-chains Scots of 74T196 feet each. Villages 
 and “ village acres,’* as they are called, were frequently, though not 
 always, plotted to double the size, or 2J chains to the inch, equal to 32 
 inches to a mile, while for hill grounds one-half, or one-fourth, eight inches, 
 or four inches to the mile, are very commonly adopted. 
 
 These scales have been found perfectly accurate, and sufficient for all 
 private purposes, including buying, selling, and renting land; and no 
 national object can demand greater minuteness. 
 
 Some few old surveyors may still use the four-chain scale, from the 
 habit acquired before the general adoption of the English chain, and others 
 may use a four or three for a small’ estate, to magnify their labours, or at 
 the desire of a vendor who fancies that the value of his property will be judged 
 by the size of the paper it covers; just as the English land agents of the 
 George Robins school, seem still to think that purchasers are attracted 
 and caught by the size of the letters in which they announce the advan¬ 
 tages of an estate in their flaming and bombastic particulars. But every 
 one knows that it is easier to read an octavo page of small pica than a 
 folio sheet of letters half an inch long; and professional men, as well as 
 unprofessional, can much more easily examine a plan, and recall, by its 
 assistance, the advantages and disadvantages they have noted on the 
 ground, when it is drawn on a five-chain or sixteen-inch scale = of 
 nature, than when laid down on a 25-inch, or of nature; and the 
 former has a great advantage when judging of the subdivision of an 
 estate or even of a farm. The eye seems to lose its power for want of 
 
44 
 
 something to excite its attention, when looking upon a large carte blanche , 
 as it has to do, when it rests on an Ordnance 25-inch sheet, with fields of 
 from ten to forty acres each, which is the size of the enclosures over one- 
 half of the cultivated districts in Scotland. 
 
 Let Colonel Dawson and Colonel James only try the 16-inch scale, and, 
 like the Scotch surveyors, on the introduction of the English chain, they 
 will soon be convinced that the areas can be calculated from it as correctly 
 as from the 25-inch; and when they wish to read off measurements to a 
 link, they know that the diagonal scale for this purpose suits the one 
 as well as the other. 
 
 Five and Ten-Feet Scale for Towns .—Whatever scale is adopted for 
 the field survey, whether the 16-inch or the 25-inch, a much larger one 
 will he necessary for towns; and, for the same reason, for villages, or 
 wherever there is a collection of houses, under whatever name, or a col¬ 
 lection of 40s. freeholds. 
 
 The rule confining the town survey to such as number 4,000 inhabitants, 
 has been infringed in favour only of county burghs; but, if there is a de¬ 
 tailed survey of the kingdom, the town scale must be extended to all house 
 property wherever it is situated, in the same way that the barren six-inch 
 is increased to the 25-inch wherever cultivation makes its appearance. 
 
 The five-feet is sufficient to show every outward wall, and the main 
 lines of aqueducts, and gasducts, and sewers, while the ten-feet scale is not 
 too large when it becomes necessary to shew the side pavements, the lamp 
 posts, and the interior subdivisions of public buildings, as is now actually 
 done; but a still larger one must be adopted if it is required, for national 
 purposes, or even municipal ones, to distinguish the kind of causeway, or 
 even to mark all the water plugs and gas cocks, and all the ramification 
 of pipes, clean and foul, to and through every city dwelling. 
 
 There is one description of property, in both town and country, to which 
 no one seems to advert, perhaps from its melancholy associations, and 
 which Colonel James does not attempt to delineate, except in the aggre¬ 
 gate, even in his ten-feet city plans—for the best of reasons, that double 
 that scale would not suffice. 1 mean the grave property in every public 
 cemetery, and every parish churchyard, in town or country, so dear to 
 every social circle! 
 
 If the 2 -J m is adopted for cultivated lands, and if so large a scale as 
 ten-feet is necessary for towns, there is reason for adopting the T Fo i 
 being 10 feet 6 inches, as also the t&gg when that is sufficient; but it is 
 easier to double or quadruple than to estimate a space five times the size, 
 and the scales of T aVo an( l ^ ie half and fourth, would have ad¬ 
 mitted of more ready comparison. 
 
 There should be a gradation of house property scales, for the sake of 
 symmetry as well as convenience, according to the denseness of the build¬ 
 ings and size of the areas. 
 
4 5 
 
 IV.—OBJECTS OF A NATIONAL SUBVEY. 
 
 “ The Advantages” (or objects) ‘‘of a strictly Public Nature, which 
 would be gained by having the Country surveyed for the purpose of 
 making and publishing Maps or Plans upon a more extended Scale than 
 that of One Inch to a Mile.” 
 
 Under this title, as quoted, Colonel James gives a carefully-prepared 
 memorandum, in Appendix No. 10, premising, however, that the advan¬ 
 tages to be derived from such a national cadastral survey are to be 
 estimated in the aggregate ; and that, as in Ireland, when brought within 
 reach of the public, it may serve many purposes not originally contem¬ 
 plated, which is very true. 
 
 An assertion, by one of the witnesses—I think the distinguished one— 
 that an object may be so general as to become public, may be true ; but apply 
 it generally in practice, and see its effect. Every individual must have clothes; 
 we all require daily bread—or, as a chemical philosopher would say—daily 
 fuel, to sustain the consuming fire of life, as we do habitations, to shield us 
 from the inclemency of British weather, and at last the whole human race 
 become the proprietors of “ six feet of earth ” to hide their ashes from the 
 public gaze; but is it the duty of the State to provide all or any of these 
 universal requirements? By the way, since writing what precedes, I 
 have seen the death of Mr. Warburton announced in the papers ; and, as 
 we should tread lightly on the ashes of the dead, I beg, if you think I 
 have unduly reflected on him, in the character of the “ distinguished wit¬ 
 ness,” you will expunge my every word : I believe he was a gentleman in 
 every sense, and one who had seen no little State service, and done some 
 good in his day, although he may have outlived the greatness of talent for 
 which he got credit, and was at one time distinguished. 
 
 I will, as briefly as possible, consider each of these objects, only somewhat 
 altering the order in which the Colonel takes them, making the last first, 
 as the three first objects under it strictly belong to departments of the 
 national Government. 
 
 I.—ENGINEERING WORKS. 
 
 1. Military Plans. 
 
 For military purposes, it was considered sufficient to survey the impor¬ 
 tant towns of Plymouth, Porstsmouth, and Dover, and lay them down in 
 MS. on the scale, although “ the public ”—meaning, no doubt, the 
 municipal authorities or the rate-payers—were put to the expense of 
 special surveys for the large town scale of the two latter, for sanitary 
 
46 
 
 purposes, which might have been saved by lending the field-hooks, which 
 must have included everything, and which could have been plotted to 
 any scale. 
 
 Of course, Chobham and Aldershott have both been surveyed on the 
 largest scale, and we cannot he said to have any other grand military 
 encampment; our fortresses, our bulwarks, and our batteries, although of 
 the strongest and most powerful description, whether for offence or de¬ 
 fence, are all floating, and can be speedily moved to any point of danger; 
 and as to our fenced cities, where are they ? They are all defended by walls 
 of “ bricks” of a most wonderful construction ; which, though of clay, with 
 a covering of wool, far surpass those of Egypt or of Babylon; for, “ instinct 
 with mind,” they not only can resist attack, but can attack with deadly 
 vengeance, as Britain’s besiegers will find when they are guilty of such 
 temerity. Britain, since she was first conquered by her civilizers, has never 
 known what invasion is, except from the dismembered parts of her own 
 body; and now that they are closely and amicably united under one Fair 
 Head, is never likely to know it again, with such strong and powerful 
 wooden, and now also iron walls, girding and floating along her coasts. 
 But she should be prepared for the remotest emergency; and nothing 
 will more promote this than a correct map of her united length and breadth, 
 from the Isle of Wight to the Lews, and from Dover to Lough Foyle. 
 Fortunately this does not require a new survey, but only the completion 
 of an old one. This alone is a powerful argument. The Count M. de 
 Montalembert is now suffering for giving her timely warning against 
 further procrastination. No plea of obtaining greater perfection should be 
 allowed to interfere in finishing the one-inch map as speedily as possible, 
 with the best materials at hand. A reduction of it to half the size will show 
 everything required in a military point of view, and is just the thing wanted. 
 Of course, it will show the condensed results of the hydrographer’s nautical 
 surveys, the Coast-guard stations, all the ports and harbours, noting the 
 depth of water off the entrance, and the size of vessels which can be 
 received within. This would be useful to the mercantile public, as 
 well as to the military authorities ; of course the navy possesses it all in 
 minute detail. The public has nothing to do with its military completion 
 at the Horse Guards, by distinguishing the different regimental barracks, 
 docks, arsenals, and Ordnance depots: and the best selection of railway 
 routes for transporting men and munitions of war to any point at which 
 they may be required. Of course the existing telegraphic towns will all 
 be noted on such a map ; and it might be worth suggesting to the Govern¬ 
 ment, to supplement this mode of conveying intelligence where railroads 
 have not yet reached, or are not likely to do so, as is done in France, 
 and extend the electric wire to several towns and ports along the coast, 
 even to the extreme north, if not also across the Minch. 
 
47 
 
 2. Hydrographical Survey. 
 
 This is an independent and fully as important a survey to the naval 
 and maritime interests, as the Ordnance is to the military and landward, 
 if not exceeding it in value, considering how much every kind of national 
 prosperity depends upon that of the mercantile service and the naval 
 defence of our sea-girt coasts. 
 
 Some may think, with Mr. Coulson, that we know enough of our 
 country for defence ; and the less our enemies know of it the better. But 
 our naval and mercantile marine cannot he too well informed as to the 
 rocks, and shoals, and quicksands along the shores; the preservation of 
 life and property demands the survey, and its maintenance, au courant 
 with the changes occasioned by storms and the diversion of under-currents, 
 at whatever expense, and at whatever risk of enlightening our foes. The 
 information cannot be denied to the foreign sailor, who is freely allowed 
 to navigate our shores; and when an enemy desires to use it, he will 
 obtain it for himself, though locked up in Colonel James’s Topographical 
 Depot; and England and English Tars will have become craven indeed, 
 if any foe, French or Kussian, is permitted to avail himself of such, or 
 far less, is permitted to do on our shores what we did in Russia in regard 
 to her coasts, four years ago. 
 
 It has been sailing along the shores of the island at as slow a speed as 
 the Ordnance survey has been driving through the country; and the latter 
 is blamed for the delay. Hydrographer Washington says, in his letter 
 to Colonel James, of the 5th April, 1856, that it was his duty to report to 
 the House of Commons, “ that the delay in completing the hydrographical 
 survey of the lochs and sounds in the north-west of Scotland arises 
 from not having any Ordnance map to work upon.” He adds, that the 
 marine surveyors have had to execute the whole of the topography, and 
 consumed ten years on a survey that would have been done in five, if they 
 had had the advantage of a six-inch Ordnance map. 
 
 The coast survey should be now very nearly finished, and cannot derive 
 much further benefit from the Ordnance, except in the way of correcting 
 and amending what is done ; but the latter may derive much aid from the 
 former, in the preparation of the finished one-inch map, and in whatever 
 is yet to do, neither party should be dependent, as would seem to be the 
 case, on the “ great liberality ” of the other. They ought to act in con¬ 
 cert, and each department should be entitled, by right, not by favour, to 
 what it requires from the other; above all, the expense of two surveys 
 should be avoided. The marine surveyors are, generally, equally good 
 topographical surveyors and draughtsmen; and it is more likely that they 
 could aid the Ordnance work, than that the Ordnance could the hydro- 
 graphical, although it would appear that their respective duties are about 
 equal in point of time required for the work. Beyond this, it does not 
 much signify which of them does the work he is qualified to do, so long as 
 the Government, or rather the country, is the paymaster of both ; but the 
 whole cost ought to have been defrayed by the Trinity House Corporation, 
 
48 
 
 before the passing of the Merchant Shipping Act of 1854; and should 
 now be charged to the Mercantile Marine Fund, into which all light dues 
 are now paid; for what “ signs” or “marks” for the sea, as buoys and 
 beacons are called, can be more useful, by day, than an accurate chart ? 
 and all the lights in the world would be of little use to the mariner by 
 night, unless their position and bearing were clearly indicated to him. 
 
 It is based upon the great triangulation ; and the exact position of the 
 sounding line is fixed with reference to the tops of the hills trigonometri¬ 
 cally laid down; and the hydrographical survey could not have been 
 commenced till General Roy’s labours on the land had furnished the 
 means. The Ordnance surveyor does not interfere with anything lower 
 than high water mark ; but the hydrographer, besides delineating the low 
 water, and submarine features, has to show objects on land; and if not 
 provided by the Ordnance, must provide himself with a coast survey, 
 “ extending from half-a-mile to a mile inland,” “ not generally marked, 
 however, by the same degree of accuracy,” according to Colonel James, 
 “ that the Ordnance surveys are.” He must mean minuteness, or fulness 
 of detail, for accuracy must equally apply to both. The scales used are 
 six, four, and two, inches to a mile. The survey for the one-inch map 
 would, therefore, seem to be sufficient for the hydrographer, if plotted to 
 the six-inch scale, and Colonel James could surely do this with little 
 additional trouble ; but it is a very important matter for landowners, as 
 well as for seamen, to have the high water line correctly traced, and it is 
 not everyone that can distinguish it along many parts of the coast. 
 
 The hydrographer is surely the best judge, and, no doubt he corrects 
 the landsmen’s mistakes in this respect, although Colonel James does not 
 say whether he avails himself of such corrections ; and it would be more 
 proper, and much more economical, to have the coast strip done wholly 
 by, or under the immediate superintendence of the hydrographer, with 
 all the minuteness that Colonel James desires. 
 
 The hydrographer could then make his own marks, and more readily dis¬ 
 tinguish them when taking his “ off-shore soundings,” during the conceal¬ 
 ment or obscurity of his trigonometric points. The line of low water, 
 though not commonly laid down on maps, would be a valuable addition to 
 one on any scale which admits of it, as even the one-inch map does, 
 except when the shore is steep, as shown on the six-inch map of the Lews. 
 Although not a nautical man, I have often thought that photographic views 
 of the whole coast of the island from stated distances at sea, would be 
 interesting to landsmen, and could not but prove invaluable to the mariner, 
 if this interesting art could be adapted, on board of ship, to such a 
 purpose. 
 
49 
 
 3. Geological and Mineral Survey. 
 
 This may also be considered an independent survey; but, at the same 
 time, though it sounds rather like an Irishism, is almost wholly dependent 
 on the Ordnance staff for the proper exhibition of its rich and varied 
 fruits. Geologists are not, and do not require to be, like hydrographers, 
 practical surveyors. 
 
 It is true that the late amiable and lamented Director-General, Sir 
 Henry de la Beche, with a rare combination of talent, united in himself 
 the measurer, the draughtsman, the engraver, and lithographer, as well as 
 geologist, and in each capacity illustrated his observations and discoveries 
 in the bowels of the earth; and. the present able superintendent of the 
 Ordnance survey is also an accomplished geologist; but it is no disparage¬ 
 ment to the present Director-General of the Geological survey, the first 
 geologist in the world, to say that he could not take Colonel James’s 
 place. 
 
 If anything can be considered national, the Geological survey is so. 
 On the very best authority, that of Sir Roderick Murchison, the real 
 discoverer of Australian gold, there is no chance of the precious, and only 
 royal, metals being discovered in Britain in Californian abundance, unless 
 his late Northern tour may have altered his opinions on this, as on other 
 points. But the science in general, and Britain’s rich mines in particular, 
 her coal, her iron, and her tin—celebrated when Rome was in the pleni¬ 
 tude of her power—and even her copper, though all private property, have 
 such an economic bearing on every art on life, nay, on life itself, affecting 
 all classes of her Majesty’s subjects, from the lowest to the highest, as 
 to demand and obtain a minute survey and careful investigation at the 
 public expense. 
 
 Nor is Scotland unworthy of attention in this respect. In the South 
 she has abundance of her own peculiar coal, and a share, though a small 
 one in proportion, of iron and even copper; and although, in the 
 Northern crystalline rocks. Sir Roderick holds out small hope of any 
 valuable metalliferous veins, and none of coal seams, either above or below 
 them, of any economic value, we know that in more than one mountain 
 district, antimony, copper, manganese, and iron are found, the last in great 
 abundance, and of richer quality than even in England. Neither Sir 
 Roderick, nor any other geologist, has sufficiently examined his native 
 Highlands, and much may be discovered which even he—who can foretell 
 what will be, and has since been, found in Africa, as well as in Australia, 
 although his foot never touched the soil—does not dream of. Gneiss, 
 the prevailing rock formation of the Highlands of Scotland, although 
 almost unknown in England or Wales, contains most of the metallic ores, 
 not excluding gold and silver, in different parts of the world. 
 
 But is the Ordnance one-inch survey and map sufficient, or what is 
 required, to aid geological research, and to exhibit its phenomena to the 
 country at the country’s expense ? 
 
 Colonel James tells us that “ Sir Roderick Murchison is now so much 
 impressed with the importance of the six-inch scale for geological maps of 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 mineral districts, that he is preparing to publish them,” and that his 
 predecessor, Sir Henry, and other distinguished geologists, were equally in 
 favour of it. One of them, Professor Jukes, the local director of the Irish 
 geological survey, writes to him that “ the one-inch scale is a mere rubbish 
 makeshift in comparisonbut having got a complete six-inch survey of 
 every moor and bog, as well as cultivated field, he had to apply for this 
 “ rubbish makeshift ” to exhibit and make his labours intelligible. They 
 were all laid down upon the six-inch map; but, like the knowledge in 
 a learned pedant’s head, they required a medium of communication- 
 
 Read what Sir Roderick says himself to the Committees of 1851 and 
 1856, confirmatory of what he had advanced in 1836. That he contended 
 for the publication of the one-inch map with as little delay as possible, 
 “ as being the result most important to the nation,” and that it was “the 
 largest scale that could be usefully applied ” to the Northern Highlands. 
 
 He says, in 1856, “ We publish no maps except those on the one-inch 
 scale,” but “ the horizontal sections which the Government geologist 
 prepares for publication have always been made on the six-inch scale,” 
 even where the one-inch map alone exists, and, of course, the six-inch maps, 
 with contours afford a ready advantage. These horizontal sections would 
 be of no geological value unless they also exhibited vertical sections of the 
 strata when the strata do not crop out. 
 
 In 1851 he gave it as his opinion “ that a six-inch survey might 
 be very valuable ” to mark the out-crop of important strata; and in 
 1856, after being Director-General, and seeing the “ great facilities which 
 the six-inch maps with contours ” afforded to Professor Ramsay and his 
 assistants “ for the more exact completion of their work,” he became more 
 in favour of it. And how, and for what reasons? First, as regards 
 coast cliffs or rocky shores, so often the key to the real framework of the 
 inland tracks, “ all the physical features are so minutely laid down,” on 
 the six-inch map, “ that every curve or break can be accurately noted 
 and to show this he exhibited a sheet which had been used; but not having 
 seen it, I cannot tell how two or more strata overlying each other at the 
 edge of a perpendicular cliff could be represented on a horizontal map, 
 even on the 25-inch scale, except by exaggerated pictorial representation. 
 Second, in the interior the geologist can insert, besides the precise out¬ 
 crops of the respective mineral beds, “ all descriptive lithological details ” 
 and “ valuable local information.” He might have included “ all zoologi¬ 
 cal details ” as well; and both could surely be noted on the margin, or on 
 the blank spaces which will be found even on the one-inch map. But, 
 third, “ the greatest of all the advantages which this scale (the six- 
 inch) map confers on the geological field-surveyor is in its contours; ” and 
 the system of contours, which proves of such use to the geologist, has been 
 condemned by all, except Colonel James, and has been abandoned. 
 
 The island is not to be wholly contoured for the sake of an occasional 
 geological section. When this is necessary, or where the exact position of 
 an important out-crop requires to be marked, let one or more Ordnance 
 surveyors be sent for the purpose, or attached to the geological staff, and 
 placed at the disposal of the Director-General. They, too, could enlarge 
 the one-inch map when this is needed, and an enlargement, though justly 
 
51 
 
 condemned for surveying purposes, will certainly be correct enough for 
 pictorial representations or descriptive remarks. 
 
 With this aid, the geologist requires no more detailed survey upon any 
 larger scale than what the one-inch affords, and even it' is too large for 
 the popular condensation of the results he has obtained, so far as they can 
 be horizontally displayed. The whole would be more intelligibly con¬ 
 veyed on a geographical map of half the size. See how fully and 
 minutely every important rock formation and even mineral deposit is laid 
 down and denoted on the geological map of the British Isles by J. A. 
 Knipe—1845, dedicated to Prince Albert—although only on the scale of 
 12 miles to the inch. Of course it cannot pretend to the minute 
 accuracy of the Ordnance Survey or the Government geological map; but, 
 as a whole, I have not seen a better published map, as regards either its 
 topography or geology. There are important omissions, but few errors in 
 what it does give. I have, with this map in hand, travelled over con¬ 
 siderable portions of Ireland, as well as of England and Scotland, and, 
 although I discovered formations unnoticed by it, I never once failed to 
 find those shown in the very place indicated. It is true it exaggerates the 
 breadth of many of the bands and veins, if not occasionally the length, and 
 also the smaller patches of strata; but when it is considered that the largest 
 mineral vein in England rarely exceeds 30 feet in breadth, and that the 
 average of the richest is between one and two feet, while in some of these 
 (as in Cornwall), the sides are copper and the centre tin, it will be readily 
 acknowledged that exaggeration to some extent cannot be avoided, even 
 on Colonel James’s largest scale. 
 
 To attempt more than a horizontal display on a horizontal map, except 
 by signs, would be vain, and tend to mislead, and these can be used on a 
 small as well as on a large scale. Take one or two of the richest mineral 
 counties in England, and see how small a portion of these riches can be 
 represented, by the cropping out, in conjunction with the horizontal 
 formation. The million acres of mountainous and heathy Northumber¬ 
 land would appear one mass of carbonate of lime, while its seams of 
 coal and rich mines of lead and iron were quite concealed; and Durham 
 would seem one large coal depot, or monster black diamond, while its lead, 
 and its iron, and its beautiful marble quarries would be almost lost sight of. 
 Even Cornwall, with its Cornish diamonds, and its great abundance and 
 variety of valuable minerals, would have to be shown as one great 
 bed of old red sandstone. The mineral wealth of each could only be shown 
 by sections and underground plans, the peculiar requirements of geology, 
 or at least of mineral economy; and for these, as Mr. Sopwith tells us, 
 we must adopt the scale of 11 feet to the mile,—larger than the largest 
 town survey. In Cornwall, too, in order to show to full advantage 
 its copper and tin mines, we have not only to descend hundreds of feet 
 into the bowels of the earth, but to penetrate thousands beneath the 
 stormy sea. 
 
 But Colonel James tells us that the six-inch scale is essential to geology— 
 and he is a practical geologist as well as surveyor, although, by the way, 
 he confesses he does not know much about mining, or the scale which it 
 necessitates. , “ I have myself,” he says, “ laid down lines of different 
 
 e 2 
 
52 
 
 copper and lead lodes upon them (the six-inch plans), and I know their 
 value.” The Colonel (who must he a Cornwall miner after all, for what 
 are called “ lodes” there are denominated veins in Durham), might have 
 performed the feat in either county, as easily with the one-inch scale as 
 with the six, seeing that in both the veins all run nearly east and west, 
 with an occasional “ bastard ” right angular intersection. Of course, by 
 any scale, he would treat the breadth of the vein as he does that of his 
 trigonometrical lines,—having the property of length only. 
 
 It is indispensable to have a geological map coloured ; and with a view 
 of saving expense to those of the public who cannot afford to purchase 
 the relative sections or mining plans, or to have two copies, it is 
 worth considering, whether the geographical map might not be engraved, so 
 that, by the process of colouring, it might be converted also into a geological 
 one. At any rate, geographical information of great value to the 
 practical agriculturist would be communicated, if the angle of dip or 
 inclination, as well as the bearing of the direction of some of the principal 
 strata were noted on all the maps ; and it would be generally acceptable 
 if the conventional signs for the ores and principal economic minerals were 
 also inserted on the one-inch map. 
 
 4. Kailway Surveys for Parliament, for the Purchase of 
 Land, and for Working. 
 
 Colonel James states, that of the <£250,000 spent in surveys for the 
 13,000 miles of railways in the United Kingdom, <£200,000 would have 
 been saved, had a national survey on a large scale existed. This 
 is more problematical than that some of the millions of their actual 
 cost, as I have before shown, would not have been squandered if the one- 
 inch map had existed. It is essential to show the directness of the 
 line, and its bearing upon other lines in contemplation, or already existing, 
 both of which are concealed, by the committee plans being published on 
 unconnected separate sheets, and were only brought to light by their exhi¬ 
 bition on a county map, in the case of opposition, till the standing orders 
 were altered to require this in all cases. No one doubts that Parlia¬ 
 ment would be satisfied with the Ordnance six-inch scale for the standing 
 orders, although it is questionable how far railway companies and engineers 
 would use even the 25-inch scale without verification, even immediately 
 after their publication, when known to be au courant; and no system of 
 contouring would preclude the necessity of levelling for Parliamentary, 
 and still less for working sections. But what right have railways to any 
 advantage over other companies, public or private? And if one part 
 of the expense of appearing before a Committee of either House is to be 
 paid by the nation, why not the whole ? 
 
 5. Canals and Koads. 
 
 The same remarks apply to these, and more particularly to the latter, 
 tolerable sections of which might be made from the heights taken along 
 them by the Ordnance; and of this the one-inch map should have the 
 benefit. If that map (in Colonel James’s language differently applied), had 
 “ existed some years ago, we should not see lines of road laid out in the 
 preposterous manner in which many of our county roads run.” 
 
53 
 
 6. Drainage. 
 
 Colonel James alludes to Sir Robert Peel’s boon to the agriculturist by the 
 grant of two millions as an advance, by way of loan under the Drainage Act 
 of 1846. He might have strengthened his argument by mentioning the 
 additional Drainage grants under subsequent Acts, all which have done so 
 much good to the United Kingdom. 
 
 . This Act directs “ that a certificate, specifying the land in respect of 
 which such an advance is to be made, must be given and Colonel James 
 contends, that it is scarcely possible to do so, clearly and intelligibly, 
 without a plan. But the object is to secure the rent charge for the twenty- 
 one years, fixed for repayment, and this is attained by a reference to the 
 titles of the whole estate, or such portion of it as is considered sufficient; 
 the use of plans, therefore, in such a case, refers not so much to drainage 
 as to facilitating the transference of landed property, or heritable security, 
 and will be considered under that head. 
 
 He tells us, what every one knows, that a record of the position of the 
 drains, and their outfalls, cannot be kept without reference to a map ; 
 and that levels are necessary before drainage can be properly undertaken. 
 
 The last, which his plans will not supply when required, is as much a 
 part of the work as cutting the drain. A map, first showing and then 
 recording the drainage, although not incumbent under any of the Drainage 
 Acts, is very properly desired and encouraged by the Inclosure Commis¬ 
 sioners, and, when complied with, they allow the cost of preparation—which 
 would not be much lessened by having an Ordnance map—as properly falling 
 under the head of expenses. 
 
 He then points out that the large plans of towns, with levels, are 
 necessary for their drainage under the Board of Health; buthe cannot say 
 that the country is required to pay the expense ; nor can he give a sufficient 
 reason for relieving the municipal authority of this portion of the work, 
 more than of any other expense in connexion with drainage for the health 
 of towns. 
 
 II.—TO FACILITATE THE TRANSFER OF PROPERTY IN LAND OR 
 
 HOUSES. 
 
 IIL—TO FACILITATE THE REGISTRATION OF THE SALE AND TITLE 
 TO PROPERTY. 
 
 Identification is what registration demands, and registration is what 
 the country requires, as being indispensable for facilitating the sale and 
 transfer of heritable property and heritable bonds, and for the security of 
 title to both. Nothing can contribute more to identification than the use of 
 correct maps, public or private, and such would also very much simplify 
 and shorten the description in title ; when once registered, the deed and 
 plan may both be simply referred to as there described and shown, in any 
 
54 
 
 subsequent sale and transfer. They may be said to be essential to a perfect 
 system of registration, though not absolutely necessary to its establishment 
 with due security. The practice of Scotland, for more than 100 years, which 
 admits, but does not insist upon the use of maps, affords abundant proof 
 of this. Lord Justice General McNeill ought to have been in his place to 
 have explained to the Boyal Commission the Scottish system of registra¬ 
 tion, about which they inquired of Sir FitzRoy Kelly, but upon which he 
 declined entering, although, from the numerous appeals to the House of 
 Lords which he has conducted, he could scarcely be ignorant of it in all 
 its details. 
 
 Colonel Janies considers the transfer of property apart from the ques¬ 
 tion of registration; but they cannot be separated, so far as the public is 
 concerned. He says that the difficulties surrounding the transfer of “ pro¬ 
 perty about to be sold, arises from the uncertainty which exists as to the 
 accuracy of the boundaries and acreage,” and that a Government survey, 
 showing every man’s property, with its exact acreage, would save the 
 expense of special surveys and greatly facilitate the transfer. But this 
 is encroaching on private domain, and requiring from Government what a 
 private vendor is not entitled to. Besides, without precautionary measures, 
 which would be regarded as an interference with private liberty, a dis¬ 
 honest vendor might impose upon a purchaser who confided in what appeared 
 to him to be a Government guaranteee. Not only would the boundaries 
 of every property, large and small, require to be exactly and authori¬ 
 tatively ascertained (as was done in Ireland, under a Government boundary 
 commission), and registration made compulsory, but every proprietor would 
 require to be prohibited from selling or giving away an acre of his land, 
 or in any way altering a single boundary fence, without recording,ifi the same 
 register, the exact nature of every change ; and all this on the supposition 
 that the survey is kept “ au courant ” as to cultivating waste ground, or 
 converting cultivated land into wood, water, or waste. 
 
 A proprietor neither could nor should be prevented from registering a 
 boundary which he claimed, and believed to be correct, although his neigh¬ 
 bour disputed it; and the best digested system of registration has as little to 
 do with the extent of the land as with its value, which both the clearness of 
 the boundary as well as the certainty of the extent will assuredly affect. It 
 is the private interest of the vendor to satisfy the purchaser, as it is of the 
 latter to satisfy himself; and both would be aided and saved expense, by a 
 Government survey, but not to the extent which Colonel James imagines. 
 A special survey could only be avoided by the correction of the survey up 
 to the date of sale; and, considering, the slow progress of the national 
 survey hitherto, and the longer time, county by county, which a more 
 detailed one must require, the one first commenced would enjoy the 
 doubtful benefit, while a generation would pass away before such could 
 be placed within the reach of the last to be finished. 
 
 But, after all, the boon is a paltry one, even if the whole expense is 
 saved, as Colonel James presumes it will be ; the security and benefit of 
 registration would be cheaply purchased at the cost of a special survey ; 
 and the proprietor, who would forego the one, rather than incur the other, 
 could not appreciate the advantages of registration, and does not know 
 
that thereby he might save more than the cost of the survey in lessen¬ 
 ing the expense of conveyance. The object should be to make the 
 registration not incumbent on proprietors, but necessary to the security of 
 title, as in Scotland. 
 
 Thousands of estates change hands without any examination or clear 
 definition of boundaries, and without any reference to plan or measure¬ 
 ment ; but in Scotland, and in York and Middlesex, where registration has 
 been established, no property in land is purchased, without not merely an 
 examination of title beyond the years of prescription, but a search of 
 incumbrances, as disclosed by the record. Immediately on concluding 
 a bargain, the fees for registration are cheerfully paid, in order to secure 
 priority to the contract. 
 
 It is the vendor, more than intending purchasers, that suffers from the 
 want of a special survey and correct delineation of the boundaries of an 
 estate; for, in their absence, candidates are naturally suspicious that there 
 is a motive for concealment; and he must blame himself, and his own 
 paltry economical notions, and not the niggardness of the Government, if 
 his property is depreciated by the want of a map that can be depended 
 upon. If the objects of a survey and plan can be attained by a special 
 private one, “ it becomes,” as Lord Justice Turner remarks, “ a narrow 
 question rather between private individuals and public expense.” “ But,” 
 replies Mr. Coulson, “ delay in the transfer of land is a public evil.” 
 Lord Langdale’s Commission, in their report in 1850, on registration, admit 
 the use of private maps, but they add, “ the formation of a map, with the 
 precautions for accuracy, involves considerable delay as well as expense in 
 completing a purchase; and, as the advantages of it are prospective and 
 often overlooked by persons not familiar with the subject, there is great 
 temptation to dispense with it.” 
 
 Registration may be established without maps, and maps may be used 
 without having the boundaries indisputably defined ; but it is desirable to 
 use maps in registration, and heritable property would be enhanced in value 
 if all boundaries could be authoritatively settled. 
 
 In the language of Colonel James’s Report, “the immediate and pros¬ 
 pective advantage to be derived from it would be of immense importance 
 to the public ; its accomplishment would form an era in the history of the 
 country, like that which marks the period of the Doomsday Book, and 
 the Down Survey in Ireland ; succeeding generations would refer to the 
 National Survey” (with the boundaries of each property laid down 
 upon it) “as an authentic record of the extent of each property at this 
 period.” 
 
 Colonel James’s suggestion of a boundary department, or commission, 
 under Act of Parliament, is an excellent one, and should not be lost sight 
 of. No more fitting opportunity could occur than during the progress of a 
 national survey; the Ordnance officers, too, armed with sufficient autho¬ 
 rity, would, as they did with the townlands in Ireland, decide summarily, 
 in a day, between two contending lairds—each with a host of ready and 
 equally confident witnesses, what would extend over a whole session in the 
 Courts of Westminster, or of the Edinburgh Parliament House. But 
 innumerable difficulties will be thrown in the way by those who have no 
 
56 
 
 desire that their boundaries should be inquired into, if not also by lawyers, 
 from motives of professional interest, as Mr. Warburton insinuates ; and it 
 is fortunate that it is unnecessary to delay registration till the boundaries 
 are settled, and equally so to register or settle the whole at once. It will 
 be sufficient to afford the opportunity, and provide the means of ascertain¬ 
 ing, defining, and registering, the rights and titles of estates as occasion 
 may require. 
 
 Mr. Coulson says (Qu. 248), “ It would be very convenient, no doubt, 
 that the boundaries of estates, as well as all other rights in relation to 
 estates, should be certain, but that it is necessary to the use of maps, or 
 that it is necessarily connected with the use of maps, I do not see.” 
 
 Sir FitzRoy Kelly says, “ There is the authority of very high opinions 
 against the practicability of any such plan,” for carrying out registration 
 by means of maps; and he himself sees great practical difficulties in the 
 way of doing so, even with the aid of plans of 20 inches to the mile, par¬ 
 ticularly in reference to the future subdivision of property, and from the 
 transformation to which it is subject in time. But he thinks they may be 
 overcome, and he has no doubt whatever of the extreme usefulness of 
 large scale maps for registration purposes. 
 
 Lord Justice Turner enlightens Mr. Warburton, by informing him that 
 the Encumbered Estates Court in Ireland got through their business (in¬ 
 cluding that of defining the boundaries) by conveying the estates and leav¬ 
 ing the rights of the purchase money unsettled. The Encumbered Estates 
 Court in Scotland (which may be said to have long existed) does the same, 
 without any Board or any power to settle boundaries with conterminous 
 proprietors; that is, the Court of Session sells an encumbered estate, and 
 gives a valid and most secure title, but in cases of dispute about the pro¬ 
 ceeds, orders consignment of the price till they are adjusted. 
 
 Something else is required for unencumbered estates in Scotland, and 
 still more in England, where, according to the report of the Commission 
 on real property, a large portion of the whole country is unmarketable, 
 either from fear of latent incumbrances, or inability to produce satisfactory 
 title deeds. It would be of little use to the public or to private individuals 
 to settle the boundaries of an estate without first determining who was its 
 proper owner. 
 
 Lord Cranworth’s bill of last session, now the law of Ireland, allowing 
 all proprietors to obtain a parliamentary title after an examination of the 
 deeds by the Court, without the occasion of a sale, has made a proper 
 commencement; and it is hoped this will be followed up or improved 
 upon by his successor, Lord Chelmsford, in regard to England, 
 and that a general system of registration, on some well digested plan, will 
 he established ; together with a Court or Board for settling, summarily and 
 cheaply, all disputes about boundaries and other rights of real property, 
 both in England and in Scotland, at the instance of any aggrieved party. 
 
 The boundaries, as described by the proprietor requiring registration, 
 might be held to be correct, and declared to be valid, if within a certain 
 fixed period after due notice being given to all conterminous neighbours, 
 no objection was made by any. 
 
 Lord Langdale’s Commission say,—“We think the use of public maps 
 would also lessen the expense of investigation of title, and conduce to con- 
 
57 
 
 ciseness as well as precision in conveyancing and they would probably 
 have thought the same as to private maps, but for the known indifference 
 of private parties to prospective advantage when present expense is to be 
 incurred (to which my former quotation from their report referred), and 
 because “ in the case of a small property, too, a private map, which is con¬ 
 fined of course to the land intended to be conveyed, frequently does not show 
 its position in reference to any permanent objects; and, after the removal of 
 fences, upon its incorporation with an adjoining estate, the evidence of 
 identity which such a map affords would fail.” But this may happen with 
 large estates as well as small, on a public as well as a private map, with¬ 
 out reference to the Ordnance chain of trigonometrical points and lines; and 
 in all some concise written description is necessary, which, though interpreted 
 and aided by a map, should if possible be independent even of it. 
 
 Colonel James, to his great credit, has made an original and excellent 
 suggestion, showing the practicability as well as possibility of this; and his 
 plan ought at once to be adopted in practice by all conveyancers. You 
 will find his own statement at page 207 of the report of the Ordnance 
 Committee of 1856, and he illustrates it by an anecdote of Mr. De la Rue, 
 the secretary of the Astronomical Society, which at the same time gives 
 additional proof of the minute accuracy of the Ordnance survey. He says, 
 “ It appears to me, though it would sound rather curious at first in courts 
 of law, that the description of property in deeds might always be by lati¬ 
 tudes and longitudes, with reference to these maps. We engrave the 
 latitude and longitude” (only since October, 1851, by a Treasury order, 
 on the suggestion of Mr. Brunei), “ on the margin to seconds—you 
 could take them off to tenths of seconds. Nothing could be easier, 
 however irregular the form, or however large or small the property, than 
 to say its most northern point, and its most southern point, in such a lati¬ 
 tude, and its western and eastern points in such a longitude. By that 
 means the exact position of the property would be absolutely tied. This 
 could be done by any lawyer’s clerk merely drawing the lines through the 
 marginal gradations ; so that whatever lapse of time might intervene, and 
 whatever changes might be made, it would be utterly impossible that the 
 identification of that property could be disturbed—there would be no 
 other place for it on the face of the earth.” 
 
 This is no visionary hypothesis, but an important, simple, practical truth; 
 the only thing wanting is the connexion of the extreme cardinal points, 
 and the tracing of an irregular boundary between each; this another party 
 has since proposed to do, in an equally simple and permanent manner. 
 He suggests describing the lines of boundary, few or many, between the 
 east, west, north, and south points, by their actual measured lengths and 
 bearings on the ground, either with each other or with the magnetic 
 meridian (noting the variation of the date). This other further says, that 
 his improvement on the Colonel’s plan would be complete with the latitude 
 and longitude of only one point along any part of the boundary ; and he 
 further suggests that this one point might be sufficiently fixed by its bear¬ 
 ings with any well defined natural, or other permanent objects, either 
 within or beyond the property, when the true geographical position cannot 
 be conveniently obtained. 
 
 The last proposal would only endure while the face of nature remained 
 
58 
 
 unchanged, or during the permanence of the objects taken at the starting 
 point; but that of the superintendent would actually carry the identifica¬ 
 tion of the property through another deluge, or any of those mighty con¬ 
 vulsions of nature which geology tells us the earth has undergone, so long 
 as it moved upon its axis and retained its place in the heavens ! 
 
 With the aid of the trigonometrical survey of the kingdom and the one- 
 inch map, so far as it is finished, there is nothing to prevent a complete 
 system of registration from being commenced and carried out, so as to 
 identify each property, large or small, and show its position with reference 
 to the whole; and that, too, with equal correctness, whether the Govern¬ 
 ment provides a cadastral survey, or leaves it to private parties to make 
 one for themselves as occasion requires. 
 
 I have before shown that estates, extending to above one square mile 
 or 640 acres, may be laid down on the one-inch map, if not also those of 
 a much smaller size; but I would assume, that all under that extent re¬ 
 quire to be surveyed and laid down to a larger scale—any scale—but say, 
 as I would suggest in preference to the 2 - 5 V 0 °f nature, an exact multiple 
 of the one-inch, viz., 4, 8 , 16, 32, 64, or 128 inches to the mile, accord¬ 
 ing to the size or peculiarity of the property, in the option of the party 
 registering, and at his expense, or at the expense of the Government, as 
 may be determined by the Legislature. In the former case the public to 
 have access to, or be provided with, Ordnance sheets at a small cost, on the 
 one-inch or two-inch scale, having the whole triangulation drawn in colour, 
 and the length and bearing of each of the sides distinctly marked. Each 
 property to be shown with reference to a side or sides of these, laid down 
 on whatever scale may be thought sufficient. 
 
 One of the recommendations of the Commission on real property was to 
 classify estates by a system of symbols, under which, and with reference to 
 which, all future subdivision, or subsequent documents, are to be entered. 
 
 Let each triangle of the trigonometrical survey, said to average about a 
 mile a side, and containing from 300 to 800 acres perhaps, less or more, be 
 treated as a separate estate under a distinct symbol or number. Let the 
 whole be regularly numbered from south to north through the length and 
 breadth of the land. Several of these will be combined when the estate is 
 large, or filled up with few or many, from time to time, when the properties 
 are small, to any suitable scale, and preserved in the registry in as many 
 sheets as there may be properties lying wholly or partly within the triangle, 
 to which they all bear reference, by the same symbol or number; or a 
 draughtsman may be attached to the register office, whose duty it would 
 be to record the boundaries of the separate properties on the official sheet 
 containing the triangle; all, of course, to the same scale, which should be 
 the smallest one on which the least of them could be distinctly exhibited. 
 The draughtsman would also be required to give extracts or copies of the 
 maps, when required, at stated fees. 
 
 In this manner, in the course of time, a complete series of record maps 
 of the whole property in the kingdom would be obtained. 
 
 It would be no objection that different properties would cross and 
 re-cross the lines of the triangles, as they now do parish and even county 
 boundaries. 
 
 The plan is practical, with or without any more detailed national survey 
 
59 
 
 than what is supplied by the Ordnance trigonometrical survey and one-inch 
 map, and may he optional or compulsory, as may be determined in regard 
 to registration; but, in either case, carrying a preference in security accord¬ 
 ing to priority. 
 
 It is even practicable, notwithstanding the existence of disputed bound¬ 
 aries, although it would be preferable to afford an opportunity of settling 
 previous to recording, as then the recorded map would complete the settle¬ 
 ment ; otherwise the boundaries would be viewed only as those claimed by 
 the party, and would serve as a record of his claim, without affording any 
 other advantage over a neighbouring proprietor. All would be at liberty 
 to do the same, and it would be no drawback that the lines would cross 
 each other, and show two boundaries; on the contrary, an advantage, as it 
 would show the extent of ground in dispute. 
 
 There is nothing to prevent the exhibition and registration in this way, 
 by means of maps, of underground property, as of mines, by attaching at 
 the margin, in the same meridian, the sheet on which they were drawn to 
 th'e same scale; and house property in different flats might be shown on 
 different moveable slips overlapping each other, but attached to the margin 
 in the same way, representing the first, second, and third or more floors. 
 
 I would recommend the proposal to the favourable consideration of Lord 
 Derby’s Government, and in particular to Sir FitzRoy Kelly, who says he 
 has thought much and “very deliberately” on the subject, although he 
 oannot say that he has yet framed a complete plan in his own mind. 
 
 IV.—TO FACILITATE THE VALUATION OF PROPERTY FOR THE 
 EQUITABLE ADJUSTMENT OF LOCAL TAXATION. 
 
 This is the most general public use to which a detailed cadastral survey 
 can be applied; and in reality, combined with agricultural statistics, the 
 only legitimate object which any Government can have in undertaking such. 
 It was the acknowledged motive for undertaking the French survey; and 
 the expressed purpose for discontinuing the survey of England and Scotland, 
 and proceeding with that of Ireland, on the six-inch scale. India has 
 been minutely mapped and measured with the same view; and Colonel 
 James informs us, in one of his official despatches, that surveys of Australia, 
 Tasmania, the Mauritius, and Ceylon, are proceeding, under officers trained 
 upon the Ordnance survey, but he does not mention the scale, or whether 
 they are valuation cadastres for fiscal purposes, or merely geographical; 
 the supposition is that they are for the former. 
 
 The object is certainly more applicable to a new country like Australia, 
 or to an old one like France, with such a large proportion still in the 
 natural occupation of the native proprietry; or like great part of Ireland 
 at the commencement of the Ordnance labours in 1824, when there were 
 two descriptions of occupiers, the squatters, or tenants on sufferance, 
 and the possessors by tenant right, who competed with the rightful owners, 
 and refused to renounce their hold unless for a sum equivalent to the fee- 
 simple value of the land. 
 
 It is not so much so to England, where, although leases are the excep¬ 
 tion, the raising of rents upon industrious tenant farmers, who have resided 
 
GO 
 
 on the land since their birth, as their fathers and grandfathers did, is con¬ 
 sidered a most ungracious and illiberal act; and still less to Scotland, where 
 nine-tenths of the land are held on covenanted leases, for stated periods 
 of various endurance, at fixed rents. The yeomanry class, who till their 
 own land, as distinguished from those who rent the lands of others—the 
 former said at one time to be the more numerous of the two in England— 
 are less known in Scotland. 
 
 It is, however, necessary, and would he useful, in both countries, where 
 the lands are in the occupation of the owners; and if a new land-tax is 
 contemplated,—of which there have been signs for a long time back,—a 
 detailed survey and valuation is indispensable, and the sooner it is com¬ 
 menced the better, after the completion of the one-inch map. 
 
 Sir R. Griffith, the chief valuator of Ireland, informs Colonel James that 
 from a third to a fourth of the expense of the Irish valuation “ would have 
 been saved had the plans been on the a~ro(T instead of on the six-inch only.” 
 How the actual inspection and valuation could be affected by the scale is 
 not very clear; and it is elsewhere reported, that, if the survey in Ireland 
 was to be commenced anew, both Sir R. Griffith and Colonel Larcom would 
 be in favour of the same six-inch scale.—(See the Correspondence on the 
 Scales.) 
 
 There is no doubt that a cadastral survey on any large scale, even on 
 the six-inch, would have been of great use, and would have saved consider¬ 
 able labour to assessors, in complying with the requirements of the “ Valu¬ 
 ation of Land and Heritages Act” (1854) for Scotland; and, in many 
 cases, where lands were in the occupation of the proprietor, their real value 
 would have been more readily, and perhaps more correctly, ascertained; 
 but Colonel James’s impression, that it could not be properly carried out 
 without a survey on which all the properties could be shown, has not been 
 realized. A detailed valuation of every parish and every county in Scot¬ 
 land has been made, faithfully and honestly, in strict accordance with 
 the Act, to the general satisfaction of all parties. Nothing further is 
 required but to keep it “ au courant ” with the changes which are annually 
 taking place ; and this duty is now, at the option of the counties, entrusted 
 to the surveyors in connexion with the Board of Inland Revenue. 
 
 It might have been different if every farm and every field had to be 
 valued, as would seem to have been the case in Ireland; but the Act, 
 very properly, allowed bond fide rents on lease to be the criterion of actual 
 annual value, unless the period exceeded 21 years, when the tenant 
 was held to be the proprietor for the purposes of rating; his farm was 
 valued as if in his own hands, and he was charged accordingly, but had 
 relief from the real proprietor to the extent of the bona fide rent. 
 
 Now that the new valuation has been made, although still liable to, and 
 capable of, amendment, there is more probability of its being of use in 
 guiding Colonel James’s staff in completing their survey, than of that 
 survey tending to perfect the valuation. The 25-inch plans now would 
 certainly be of less use than the one-inch one would have been in 1854, in 
 a variety of ways ; as in ascertaining the boundaries of parishes, and pro¬ 
 portioning rentals between parishes, and burghs, and counties, and laying 
 down the “ marches” of large estates, &c. 
 
61 
 
 V.—FOR ALL TRANSACTIONS AFFECTING LAND AS BETWEEN 
 LANDLORD AND TENANT. 
 
 Colonel James does not always make such novel and wonderful dis¬ 
 coveries as that of applying the latitude and longitude to the identification 
 of estates, which I have noted. He indulges sometimes in truisms and 
 commonplaces, but wishes them all to be seen through his own theodolite. 
 Who does not know that a minute survey, on a large scale, is as necessary 
 to let, as to sell land fairly, although proprietors do not always act as if 
 they believed it ? The coarsest and commonest products of the earth 
 are not allowed to change hands except by weight or measure. There 
 has long been a battle between buyer and seller whether coals should be 
 sold by the one or the other; and the country at the present moment is 
 agitated by meetings to enforce the sale of grain by weight instead of by 
 measure; but the earth itself is not considered worth the trouble, and is 
 constantly being let and taken, sold and bought, in gross. Mr. Ellice, 
 the Laird of Glenquoich, knows that rating has to do with value (or 
 rather, in his view, with rent), but could not understand the connection 
 of the large scale with the levying of assessments, till Colonel Dawson 
 gravely explained “ that the value of a field depends upon the number of 
 acres, and the rate per acre.” Before the value of a cadastral survey is 
 generally appreciated, or would be universally used when it is got, 
 Colonel James will require to introduce a measure, compelling all trans¬ 
 actions in letting and selling land to be carried out by its acreage. 
 
 He tells us that his survey provides the tenant with an authentic plan, 
 and the acreage of every inclosure (many would tell him they wished 
 they had inclosures) on the farm he is about to take, so that no dispute 
 can arise as to the rent where the agreement is by the acre. 
 
 That it provides for recording improvements made by tenants, and deter¬ 
 mines their claims on leaving; gives levels for drainage improve¬ 
 ments, and enables the position of the drains to be marked, as recom¬ 
 mended by Lord Berners. That the country is an aggregate of farms ; 
 these advantages are common to tenants; tenants are a large section 
 of the public; and ergo , this is an advantage of a strictly public nature 
 requiring a large scale survey, q. e. d. Another would tell us that it 
 is the duty of the proprietor to provide the survey and plan ; and if the 
 country provide for tenants all that some people consider to be the duty 
 of proprietors, all the millions of national revenue will not suffice. But if 
 the tenant gets this boon, he pays equally for it with his proprietor, for 
 most assessments on land are now levied one half on owners, and the 
 other on occupiers. * 
 
 YI.—“FOR IMPROVEMENT IN THE MANAGEMENT OF ESTATES; THE 
 RECLAIMING OF WASTE LANDS, OR FROM THE SEA.” 
 
 This might surely have been included with the last under one head, 
 - “ The advantages of correct surveys and plans to proprietors and 
 
G2 
 
 tenants.” How shortly yet fully are they all summed up in the 
 Colonel’s own comprehensive sentence, which cannot be too deeply im¬ 
 pressed on every English Baron as well as Scottish Laird. 
 
 “ The improvement of the productive power of the land is a question 
 which affects the whole community ; and all experience tells us that 
 whether for the improvement of lands already under imperfect cultivation, 
 or for the reclaiming of waste land, or the reclaiming of land from the 
 sea, the first demand is an accurate map, on which all the work contem¬ 
 plated to be made can be clearly and distinctly set out.” How like this 
 is to the advice Sir John Sinclair gives in one of his agricultural essays, 
 “ Before commencing the improvement of a property, it is absolutely 
 necessary to be possessed of a correct survey and plan in order to preserve 
 consistency, and to adjust every operation with reference to the whole.” 
 But good Sir John, in his simplemindedness, meant each proprietor to pay 
 for his own plan as well as for his own improvements, and no more thought 
 of the country doing the one than the other. Sir Robert Peel, when 
 Premier of England, acted upon the advice ; but instead of ordering the 
 the Ordnance staff to make a 25-inch survey of Staffordshire, he employed 
 a private surveyor. Colonel Dawson drew up the conditions and made 
 the bargain for him, as he tells the Committee. 
 
 It is said that, he is a benefactor to his country who makes two blades 
 of grass grow where only one grew before ; what a large benefactor will 
 Colonel James become who thus aids in the reclamation of so much waste. 
 
 VII.—“ FOR THE ADJUSTMENT OF THE CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL 
 DIVISIONS OF THE COUNTRY.” 
 
 Colonel James tells us what all must believe, even although he had 
 not said so, that “ The plans of Ireland have been found of the greatest 
 value for the purpose of accurately setting out the boundaries of electoral 
 districts; the boundaries of unions under the poor law ; for alterations in 
 the boundaries of counties, to make the counties more compact in reference 
 to assize towns; for alterations in parish and townland boundaries, and 
 for alterations in the ecclesiastical divisions of the country.” 
 
 “And,” he adds, as correctly, “whoever has examined the boundaries 
 of parishes and counties in Great Britain, must see that similar adjustments 
 are required here.” 
 
 But is not the one-inch survey sufficient for all these things ? and is it 
 not even better adapted for every one of the purposes mentioned, than the 
 cumbrous 25-inch plans, on which even a whole parish cannot be at once 
 exhibited ? The only regular divisions in the county are the Parliamentary 
 B.urgh-boundaries, which were arranged at the time of the last Reform 
 Bill era, and some of them already require extension; and much that is 
 anomalous and inconvenient in the present parish and county-boundary 
 arrangements, would have long since been reformed in Scotland, if the 
 one-inch map had made them apparent, and furnished the means. Let 
 this great and strictly public advantage be no longer delayed. 
 
G3 
 
 Colonel James concludes his eloquent paper on the “ strictly public 
 advantages” of a cadastral survey by a hope, that if the survey of Great 
 Britain is steadily prosecuted upon a proper system, and with liberal annual 
 grants from Parliament, we shall soon be able to apply to it the remarks 
 which are made in the Report of Mr. Walpole’s Commission, in 1857, 
 relative to the survey in Ireland. “We are informed by competent wit¬ 
 nesses that the Ordnance survey of Ireland is considered one of the most 
 valuable acts of practical government that has ever been carried out in 
 Ireland. The maps are in almost universal use in the management of 
 estates, in the sale of land, and in the valuation of land for public and 
 private purposes.” 
 
 VIII.—AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact, that the memorandum by Colonel James, which 
 I have been reviewing, is silent on the subject of agricultural statistics, or 
 even of statistics of any kind, except by implication. 
 
 The Committee of 1856 includes them among the purposes which a 
 national survey ought to subserve; and the attention of Sir Charles Tre¬ 
 velyan, and Mr. Yignoles, and even of Colonel James himself, is directed 
 to the subject in their evidence. Sir Charles adds them to the objects 
 which Colonel James enumerates, because a large scale map furnishes “ an 
 excellent frame-work ” for collecting them. Mr. Yignoles adheres to the 
 opinions he enunciates and discusses in his printed letters, and thinks that 
 “ agricultural statistics can never be properly obtained without the basis of 
 these large plans to go upon.” Colonel James, in his evidence, entirely 
 agrees with Mr. Yignoles, and tells the Committee that he submitted a 
 plan to the Committee of the House of Lords upon the subject, which was 
 not adopted, only because it would be impossible to carry it out without 
 the aid of maps. But, with the Ordnance large maps and books of refe¬ 
 rence, he is quite sure that any parish schoolmaster could furnish accurate 
 returns, and quite privately too, by merely using his eyes during his con¬ 
 stitutional walks. Yet Colonel James, in a carefully-prepared and well- 
 considered memorandum, or rather report, given in to a Royal Commission, 
 whose first duty, in obedience to her Majesty’s royal “ will and pleasure” 
 was to inquire into and state “ the principal purposes which a national 
 survey should subserve,” makes not the slightest allusion to statistics, one 
 of the chief, if not the chief; and this, too, while considering, not merely 
 a national survey on a small scale, which everybody desires, but a grand 
 cadastral plan, of which many question the propriety, at least till the other 
 is furnished, and for which, the importance of statistics of the arable, pas¬ 
 ture, wood, and waste within the kingdom, formed the principal argu¬ 
 ments. The proper military plan is the one-inch map, or rather one of half 
 the size. For hydrographical and geological purposes, partial surveys only 
 are required in addition, and these would be better made specially for the 
 particular objects required, under direction of the Hydrographer and 
 Geologist. What more than the one-inch map is considered necessary for 
 the execution of canals, roads, and railway works, should be considered 
 
G4 
 
 part of the expense of such works, even supposing that engineers would 
 adopt the Ordnance plans on the 25-inch scale. Tithe commutation may 
 now be called a “fait accompli” and the altered instruments of appor¬ 
 tionment have reference to the original maps, which can he adjusted to the 
 passing time, with as much accuracy for the ulterior as for the original 
 purpose, even when, as in the case given by Colonel Dawson, a single appor¬ 
 tionment is cut up into forty or fifty separate parcels for building pur¬ 
 poses ; and the country cannot surely be called upon to pay millions for a 
 survey of the kingdom, to supply the partial surveys which exchanges 
 under the Copyhold, Inclosure, and Tithe Commissions may require, when 
 the benefit they effect to parties will not warrant the trifling expense. 
 
 Surveys on a large scale, for towns, are strictly special, under the 
 authority of the Board of Health ; and the municipal authorities ought to 
 be required to pay for the plans, the same as for drainage for the 
 general health, which they are meant to subserve. For registration pur¬ 
 poses, the one-inch map, in connexion with the trigonometrical survey, is 
 better adapted and of far greater value, for ordinary-sized estates, 
 than is supposed by many who ought to know better; and, whatever sur¬ 
 vey or whatever scale is necessary for distinctly exhibiting small properties, 
 or under peculiar circumstances, in no case can the acreage be required 
 more than the value for the registration of any estate, large or small. 
 
 If it is the duty of the Government to furnish the vendor of a landed 
 estate with an accurate plan, it is equally their duty to provide measurers 
 for the seller of every other kind of heritage, or real property, or even of 
 moveable estate. 
 
 For the valuation of property, with a view to the equitable adjustment 
 of general as well as local taxation, or for fiscal purposes, the acreage is 
 required only for property “ in hand for there would be little equity in 
 charging a proprietor or tenant on more than the bona fide rent during the 
 subsistence of an ordinary lease ; and at its expiry the utmost value of any 
 heritage is what it will bring from year to year in its actual state. 
 Although it is the duty of every paternal Government to remove legal 
 obstructions to the granting of leases and the improvement of estates, and 
 even to encourage such by “ wise, just, and beneficial ” laws, if there 
 is any object, any “ advantage,” or “ purpose ” of a strictly private nature, 
 which claims immunity from State interference, it is the management of 
 private estates, and “ all transactions affecting land, as between landlord 
 and tenant.” For the adjustment of the civil and ecclesiastical divisions 
 of the country, having some great public objects in view, the Ordnance 
 one-inch map is, I repeat, not merely sufficient, but peculiarly adapted. 
 
 But for agricultural statistics, which require such a detailed survey as 
 will distinguish arable from pasture, and wood from both ; which demands 
 such a large scale plan as will admit of the acreage being calculated upon 
 it, by scale and compasses, instead of by the more expensive mode—as it 
 would seem—of separate ground measurement; which are of the 
 most general application, affecting every individual of every class commer¬ 
 cially and vitally; a purpose which cannot be subserved by the one-inch 
 map, or indeed by any other mode, with the same accuracy of result; and 
 which alone demands a grand cadastral survey, such as is proposed, not 
 
65 
 
 merely as their frame-work or their basis, but as both—their root and branch 
 —for this purpose Colonel James has not even a place. There must be 
 some reason for, or cause of, this omission: what can it be ? 
 
 It is only less remarkable, that Sir Richard Griffith, in the eleven 
 purposes to which he says the Irish survey has been applied, and found so 
 practically useful, he does not include agricultural statistics, although it 
 was reported that the Irish constabulary were employed to collect them by 
 the aid of the six-inch plans. 
 
 This silence must surely proceed from the known unpopularity of agri¬ 
 cultural statistics with proprietors, and still more with tenant farmers, 
 which, perhaps, the superintendent hints at when he says, that the parish 
 schoolmasters could do the work ** very quietly,” “ without reference to 
 either owner or tenant.” This must be the cause of the omission. 
 
 Ia the memorial of the Highland and Agricultural Society, through 
 their Vice-President, the Duke of Montrose, dated 22nd March, 1839, 
 reference is made to a memorial of a former date (July, 1837) for the 
 detail of all the objects which they consider it desirable to have repre¬ 
 sented ; but in this one they state “ generally,” under seven heads, the 
 information which it is necessary the map should afford, in order to give 
 “ a full exhibition of all the geographical features of the country.” The 
 second of these is as follows: “ Marks to indicate what parts of the 
 country are cultivated, what parts are waste, and what parts are covered 
 with woods or plantations.” 
 
 Of course all the plans distinguish the woods, for they are all 
 pictorially represented even on the one-inch map. To show upon it all 
 the enclosures is neither desirable nor possible; but upon the six-inch 
 maps, and on the 25-inch plans, every patch of pasture and waste within 
 an arable enclosure, and every portion of cultivated land, though open as 
 the adjoining moor, should be exactly delineated and calculated, as is done 
 by every private surveyor, and some sign or mark should be used to 
 distinguish cultivated from uncultivated ground, whether enclosed or not. 
 If this is not according to Colonel James’s practice, the sooner he adopts it 
 the better, for it is essential to the collection of agricultural statistics. 
 Indeed, if such a detailed survey, as the 25-inch one implies, is to be 
 generally proceeded with, some qualified officer of the staff should be 
 required to examine the pasture and waste, and denote, by a third 
 distinguishing mark, the portions susceptible of reclamation, at a remunera¬ 
 tive outlay, as is very generally done in private surveys, which the 
 Ordnance one is meant to supersede. 
 
 This would be highly desirable in a social and economical, as well as 
 political, point of view, thereby showing the resources of the country, and 
 the amount of capital which might still be profitably employed in increasing 
 the breadth of cultivated land—and it would be a pity to have it neglected 
 to save a few thousands of additional expenditure. 
 
 From the trigonometrical survey and the one-inch map we can obtain 
 the area of the whole country, still unknown, in this, the latter half of the 
 nineteenth century ; and, by the same means, with a little calculation, we 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 may also obtain the extent of underwood and plantation ; but by the more 
 detailed survey only can we obtain the exact amount of cultivated land 
 and improvable waste ; and it is for Parliament to determine whether the 
 prospective advantages, which this holds out, together with the facilities 
 which such a survey would undoubtedly afford to many other objects of 
 very general interest, public or private, are sufficient to warrant the 
 necessary expenditure. 
 
 As a matter of course, in the common fluctuation of all terrestrial 
 things—for all matter is movable, and motion implies change—what is cor¬ 
 rect this year will not be so the next; and provision will have to be made 
 for keeping up the portions finished pari passu, or “ au courant ” with those 
 in progress, and also for maintaining the whole, on its completion, 
 in all its original integrity; as otherwise, in time, it would become a mere 
 antiquarian record—like Domesday book—without any practical use. 
 
 The period during which a survey may remain entire is variously stated, 
 and no doubt will be different in different parts of the country, and in the 
 same part during times of agricultural prosperity or depression. Ten 
 years has been stated as an average; and it would be well to give the 
 statistical results, as well as official issues of corrected and adjusted plans 
 and maps, in decennial periods along with the general census. 
 
 From the experience of the changes which have taken place during a 
 few years, in the counties of York, Wigton, and Dublin, Colonel James 
 estimates the cost of revision at about 85. 4 d. per 100 acres, which will 
 certainly be under the mark. Irish proprietors are charged 25s.; call it 
 16s. 8 d. per 100 acres every ten years, which would amount to <£64,000 
 annually over the whole of Great Britain and Ireland. The £4000 
 anticipated as an annual income from the sale of maps, so much boasted 
 of by the Colonel, and evidently so gratifying to some of the members of 
 Committee, will only repay £84,000 at 21 years’ purchase, without con¬ 
 sidering the expense of paper and printing. 
 
 Even with the correct arable acreage of every county, or even of every 
 field on every farm, as the foundation of statistical inquiry, it is extremely 
 difficult, as Mr. Hall Maxwell and Mr. Caird have found, to construct 
 workable machinery for discovering the proportion under the several kinds 
 of cultivated crops; and after that is done, for determining the annual 
 produce under each, which at the best must be acknowledged to be only 
 an intelligent guess. Scotsmen as well as Englishmen, free born and inde¬ 
 pendent, so long as they pay their “ scot and lot,” have a natural pre¬ 
 judice against State inquisition into their private affairs, even when their 
 interest is not in question; and the British farmer’s repugnance to giving, 
 even decennially, an exact return of his stock and crop may be excused, 
 when it is considered that his landlord may make use of the result as the 
 data for fixing his rent on a new lease : Manchester would give a growl, 
 and her champion, John Bright, would have another grievance added to 
 his long list, if an Act were passed requiring every manufacturer to state 
 the amount of his yearly stock of raw material and converted produce, 
 together with the number of mules he annually employs. 
 
 What, however, the State cannot do, an influential body like the High- 
 
67 
 
 land and Agricultural Society of Scotland, with a hold on the affections of 
 the people, and having their advancement in improving the breeds of 
 cattle, and increasing the productiveness of their farms, as the professed 
 purposes of their institution, may accomplish. The result of the four 
 years’ experiment (now abruptly terminated) at the instance of the 
 Highland Society, with the sanction of the Board of Trade, and through 
 the liberality of the Treasury, has shown that this is practicable, with 
 approximate accuracy, at the moderate expenditure of ,£4000 a year, so 
 far as Scotland is concerned. What has been accomplished may be 
 brought to greater perfection, with increased experience and the aid of 
 the Ordnance maps, and may be extended to England under the 
 auspices of her kindred Society. At any rate, Scotland should not 
 be allowed to lose the advantage of the annual agricultural statistics, 
 which it had begun to enjoy, through the waywardness or obstinacy of a 
 spoiled secretary. The Highland Society should at once appoint a special 
 statistical secretary, who, with zeal and ability equal to those displayed 
 by Mr. Hall Maxwell, but without his dignity to maintain, will not 
 consider it in any way degrading to keep detailed and exact accounts 
 of every shilling of expenditure. However annoying it may be, it is what 
 every civil servant has to do, from the Secretary of State downwards, by 
 the law of the land; and the Highland Society’s secretary, even though a 
 Companion of the Bath, need not murmur at having to state the expense of 
 annual Committee dinners when this is no more than the Premier and his 
 cabinet have to submit to, in their Greenwich white bait jollities over the 
 triumphs of the session. 
 
 I am quite sure, from the liberality which the letters of Sir Charles 
 Trevelyan and Mr. Edgar Bowring display, that if the directors volunteer 
 an explanation similar to that which they have given to Lord Southesk 
 in another analogous case, the Treasury will immediately restore the grant 
 of £4,000, or even give a larger sum, if required, for such a national 
 purpose. 
 
 Although “ we may endeavour to persuade our fellow-citizens, it is not 
 lawful to force them even to that which is best for them,” and it is proper 
 to respect the feelings and even prejudices of the British farmer, while we 
 endeavour to obtain what we know will tend to the public weal without 
 injury to him. It would, therefore, be desirable to obtain the annual 
 amount of British produce, without reference to owner or occupier. How 
 Colonel James’ plan of obtaining this result through the parochial school¬ 
 master would do in England, I am not capable of judging, but I fear it 
 would not answer in Scotland, where they are already as much over¬ 
 burdened with work as they are underpaid for their scholastic duties, as 
 well as for various heterogeneous official ones which they are required to 
 perform under different Acts of Parliament. It would, in my opinion, be 
 better to entrust the work to the new county constabulary ; their standard 
 of intelligence would point them out as qualified for the task, while the 
 prowling duties they have to perform would afford ample opportunity ; and 
 the “ little brief authority” of their commission, if it did not prevent giving 
 offence, would at least silence unfounded complaint. 
 
 f 2 
 
G8 
 
 But another mode still less objectionable might be adopted in Scotland. 
 With a knowledge of the parish, or even county, arable acreage, 
 and the average system of rotation followed, which it would not be 
 difficult to obtain, a very near approximation to the proportions of land 
 under sown grass, green crop, and grain (if not also of its several kinds), 
 would be arrived at. Having obtained this, the discreet, intelligent 
 jurymen, composed entirely of proprietors and practical farmers, 
 would have little difficulty, while annually striking the “fiars prices ” 
 of grain, in making an estimate (as correct as that of Mr. Max¬ 
 well’s district enumerators or committee-men, most of whom indeed 
 would be found on the juries) of the yearly yield or average acreable 
 rate of produce in each county, according to the season and their own 
 observation. Evidence, indeed, might be adduced before them of this, as 
 well as of the price of grain. The present drawback is the period of 
 meeting, the courts being held in spring; but it has been proposed, with 
 other objects in view touching the jiars, to hold an additional court in 
 the autumn, which would be just the proper season. 
 
 V.—RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR CON¬ 
 SIDERATION OF THE LEGISLATURE, IN SANCTIONING 
 THE SYSTEM AND PROCEDURE FOR CARRYING OUT 
 THESE OBJECTS. 
 
 I must bring to a close this long letter, which has as far exceeded the 
 limits I intended, as it has wandered beyond the immediate object I 
 had in view ; but I shall be well pleased if it aids your official inquiry; 
 and, having gone so far, I will indicate the recommendations which I 
 would have you to act upon in giving your voice and vote in your legislative 
 capacity, when the subject comes under discussion in the approaching 
 session of Parliament. 
 
 Ordnance Maps without Cadastral Survey. 
 
 First. That the unfinished portions of England and Scotland be at once 
 surveyed expressly for the one-inch map, and that the completed portions 
 be corrected up to the present date, at the estimated cost of ,£279,972, 
 with a view to the engraving and publication of a new and uniform issue 
 of the one-inch map of England, Ireland, and Scotland, each separately, 
 and complete by itself, within the shortest possible period, not exceeding 
 eight years, without allowing any more time or money to be frittered away 
 in any partial surveys on any other scale on any ground, except for the 
 objects following. 
 
69 
 
 Second. That simultaneously with the publication of this new issue, 
 another similar edition of the one-inch map be published also in sheets, 
 without the hill shading, but with the triangulation drawn and printed in red 
 lines, drawn or dotted, regularly numbered, with the lengths of each side 
 and their bearings, as also the height of the stations above the Liverpool 
 datum, all distinctly marked in red figures. And that in the mean time 
 the Ordnance superintendent be required to furnish these particulars 
 to any parties desiring such for any private or public purpose, and ob¬ 
 taining an order for the same from the Secretary to the Treasury, or 
 from the Secretary to the Board of Trade. 
 
 Third. That the superintendent of the Ordnance be required to fur¬ 
 nish to the Hydrographical and Geological departments such tracings as 
 they may require of the portions yet to be surveyed, plotted to the six- 
 inch scale, but without further detail than the one-inch map requires ; and 
 that the Director-General of the geological survey be furnished with one 
 or more trained Ordnance surveyors, as he may require them, for any 
 special geological survey, or to assist his local directors. 
 
 Fourth. That the Ordnance superintendent be allowed, on the order of 
 the Inspector-General of Fortifications, or the Secretary for War, to make 
 special surveys, on a large scale, of any Royal or Parliamentary Burgh, 
 whatever be its size, on application being made for the same, or on the 
 Burgh’s requiring such under the authority of a Police Act, or of that of 
 the Board of Health, within the districts yet to be surveyed, at the 
 expense of the municipal authorities. 
 
 Fifth. That the Ordnance superintendent be directed to proceed with 
 the preparation of a geographical map of the British Isles by a reduction 
 of the one-inch map (which is ^ of nature) to the scale of 0’396 of an 
 inch to the mile, or -re oiWo °f nature—exactly twice the size of the geo¬ 
 graphical map of France, of which the half, or sixteen sheets, are published. 
 
 Cadastral Survey to follow. 
 
 If the Legislature, is in favour of a detailed cadastral survey, at the 
 estimated cost of <£2,686,764 (of course what is done would stand |or so 
 much), which no constituency will object to, after the completion of the 
 one-inch map, I would suggest in addition the following resolutions :— 
 
 First. That immediately on the completion of the survey for the one- 
 inch map, but not sooner, the Ordnance trained staff be divided—two-thirds 
 remaining in England, and one-third sent to Scotland, under an assistant 
 superintendent, and that a detailed cadastral survey, showing both reputed 
 ownership and tenancy, be commenced and regularly proceeded with over 
 the whole of each country, commencing at Dover, in Kent, in England, 
 and Tweedmouth, in Berwick, in Scotland. 
 
 Second. That the survey be plotted to either the scale of 25 inches to 
 a mile = of nature, or to that of sixteen inches to a mile = - 39 V 0 °f 
 nature, and reduced in the one case to 6.3360 inches = to,Voo> or the 
 other to four inches equal to y-g ; and that the first be furnished to 
 the public in lithographic or zincographic copies, and the second in 
 engraved sheets, or in lithograph from an engraved copy. 
 
70 
 
 Third. That during the progress of the survey any parties may be 
 permitted to obtain from the Ordnance superintendent, at fees to be fixed 
 by the Treasury, MS. copies of any portion finished, on either of the scales 
 determined on. 
 
 Fourth. That for the purposes of registration, sale, or transfer of 
 property, any parties may require the services of the Ordnance surveyors, 
 by an order from the Treasury or Board of Trade, to correct or adjust 
 any completed survey to the passing time, on such a scale of charges as 
 may be approved of by the Treasury. 
 
 Fifth. That the superintendent be instructed to set apart a portion of 
 his surveying staff for the purpose of maintaining the completed survey 
 “ au courant and to arrange for the publication, every ten years, of the 
 amended statistics of each parish as to arable land, wood, pasture, and 
 waste ground. 
 
 January 12 th, 1859. 
 
POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 Since your friend—who has had experience, and ought to be a judge, as 
 well as yourself—thinks well of my letter on the subject of the Ordnance 
 survey, and believes that it echoes the general voice of the public—if the 
 “ representatives of the people ’* could only be got to listen—I can have 
 no objection to your publishing it, and affording them an opportunity 
 of hearing, or rather of reading, in any way you may consider best. 
 
 I think I can substantiate what I have written before a Committee, or 
 even at the bar of the House, if called upon to do so. And although 
 blame has not been withheld where I thought it was due, neither has 
 just praise been refused where it was deserved. If, in dealing out 
 either the one or the other, or in introducing any name on my page, I 
 may give offence to any, whether in authority or not, I can only say that 
 I have not been actuated by any mere desire to do so, and that I have no 
 wish to undervalue the services of any man, public or private. 
 
 You are at a loss as to the most likely mode of reaching the ear, or 
 rather the eye, of the Hon. and Right Hon. members; you say pamphlets 
 are a drug, which they, as well as the public, nauseate ; and that to read 
 a tithe of what that great modern Mercury, Rowland Hill, brings you 
 every morning, would leave no time for either committees or debates, 
 which encroach so grievously on needfnl repose. You hint at my con¬ 
 densing for a newspaper or review, which all are compelled to glance 
 over, or run the risk of losing caste; but condensing has been my chief 
 labour as my own desire already; and in order to cut down to the dimen¬ 
 sions that suit your medium of publication, I must allow you to use the 
 knife or the stylus. 
 
 I doubt, however, if the subject, or my mode of treating it, is suffi¬ 
 ciently popular or interesting to secure admission into one of the leading 
 prints of the day; and you will not insert it in any of those which a 
 Member of Parliament has no chance of seeing. 
 
 Depend upon it, if you print my letter, and if it contains any important 
 or useful suggestions, as you seem to think, they will be seen and laid 
 hold of by some one; and then, in these reading days, all will desire to 
 see and judge for themselves, as to whether he is right or wrong in his 
 estimate; otherwise, it will sink into the oblivion it deserves, and into 
 which so many thousands have gone before, until some Macaulay, in the 
 next century, ferrets out a copy to settle some point in the scale contro¬ 
 versy, or perhaps to remove a doubt as to which of the three portions of 
 the empire were first or last surveyed. 
 
 In whatever mode you disseminate my letter, I must ask you to print 
 
72 
 
 along with it this Postscript, in order to notice another Blue Book—pre¬ 
 sented to Parliament since I addressed you—which was only forwarded 
 to me the other day. It does not seem to call for much remark, and I 
 will not make any which is not rendered necessary by what I have already 
 written. 
 
 It is called a “ Report of the Progress of the Ordnance Survey and 
 Topographical Depot, to the 31st Dec., 1858.” 
 
 It emanates from the War Office, or what is called its' “ Topographical 
 Department,” but of course is drawn up by Colonel James, by whom it is 
 signed, of date 4th Feb., 1859. 
 
 “ Section I.” 
 
 1. “ RECENT CHANGE OF ORDERS.” 
 
 Under this head Colonel James alludes to the 18th of June—not of 
 1815, that glorious day of which every Briton, whether military or not, 
 is proud—but of 1857, that day, or rather night, when his “ arms ” 
 received a reverse under the skilful manoeuvring of Sir D. Norreys; and 
 details the plan he adopted, with the aid of the War Office, to recover 
 his lost position, and ultimately to defeat the House of Commons’ Major- 
 General. 
 
 British valour always carries the day in the end, and Colonel James 
 and his staff again triumph; although a short treaty of peace, signed 
 by Lord Palmerston before leaving office, still hampers his territorial 
 conquests. 
 
 The Report states that a majority of ten decided against the parish 
 plan scale of 2 -- 5 V 0 , and in favour of the six-inch scale; but the motion 
 was simply to reduce the Ordnance survey estimate by <£36,000, as I 
 mentioned, and its meaning could only be gathered from the debate. 
 
 But Lord Palmerston so interpreted it, and ever faithful to his “ beloved 
 Commons ,” passed a Treasury letter, on the 2nd of July, in accordance 
 with what he deemed their wishes, discontinuing the large scale, and 
 requiring the adoption of the six-inch henceforth. 
 
 The Royal Commission was appointed, and reported favourably, as I 
 have stated, on the 20th May, 1858. The defeat of the Palmerston 
 administration, however, and the succession of Lord Derby and his Con¬ 
 servative Government, put the gallant Colonel, as many others, both in 
 and out of office, entirely beyond their reckoning; but he fared better 
 than some have done, having his old friend, Sir Charles, still at his old 
 post as assistant secretary, although now gone to India, to his, the Colonel’s, 
 great loss, as to her great gain. 
 
 On the 14th August, 1858, he prevailed on General Peel to memorialize 
 the new Treasury Lords ; and Sir Charles Trevelyan, on the 11th Sep¬ 
 tember following, communicated their authority for resuming “the arrange¬ 
 ments for publishing the results of the survey, directed by former Minutes, 
 till the subject is again brought before Parliament.” 
 
 This memorial, or letter, from the War Office, refers to the Royal Com¬ 
 mission Report, and very correctly states that that Report recommends 
 the 25-inch scale ; and as the reply mentions that the Lords “ have care- 
 
73 
 
 fully considered the Report,” we may presume that they have also read 
 it correctly; but, I am sorry to add, that I cannot say so much of Colonel 
 James, who professes to give its substance; for he entirely ignores the 
 first recommendation, which many with me will view as the most im¬ 
 portant : “ That the one-inch map of the United Kingdom be forthwith 
 completed, engraved, and publishedand he states further that “ the 
 Commissioners recommend that the sheets, which include the coast line of 
 all Scotland, should be drawn on the six-inch scale for the hydrographical 
 survey now in progress whereas they do so only incidentally in the Report. 
 They state that, in addition to the surveys recommended (under Nos. 1 
 and 2), the exigencies of the State may require special surveys for par¬ 
 ticular objects; and give this as an example: “ It appears that the one- 
 inch map is too small for hydrographical purposes ; it might therefore be 
 desirable that a small strip of land, adjoining the coast, should at all 
 events be surveyed and drawn on the six-inch scale, by which, in the 
 opinion of the hydrographer, a large saving would be effected.” Is this a 
 recommendation ? 
 
 Such are the words of the Report, and Colonel James’ construing them 
 into a direct recommendation is only surpassed by his interpreting the 
 Treasury letter of the 11th September, which only authorizes a preparation 
 of the results of the survey for publication, into an express sanction of the 
 resumption of the survey itself, and the placing of matters in statu quo. 
 
 This he does ; for immediately after the Treasury letter he adds, “ The 
 survey is, therefore , now proceeding under the instructions which were 
 issued previous to the debate in the House of Commons on the 18th June, 
 1857.” It is not that vote, but the Treasury Minute of Lord Palmerston 
 acting upon it, that requires to be rescinded before any new surveys for 
 the 25-inch scale can be proceeded with. 
 
 But I am forgetting myself; it is only against the plotting to that scale 
 that the unrescinded Treasury Minute of 2nd July, 1857, bears ; it adopts 
 the six-inch 4 4 in the further progress of the survey,” and there is no dif¬ 
 ference in the out-door work between it and the 25-inch survey. There¬ 
 fore Colonel James may safely go on with the cadastral survey of North¬ 
 umberland and Cumberland, and the whole of the Lowlands of Scotland, 
 with, in addition, the coast strip of undefined breadth; but will render 
 himself amenable if he protracts an acre to any scale above the six-inch. 
 He will prefer accumulating an arrear of undrawn work; and the one- 
 inch map will be again delayed indefinitely. 
 
 This shows the necessity for having the whole question brought before 
 Parliament, and finally decided as speedily as possible. But between the 
 continental war now raging, and the less bloody, though not less fierce, 
 party one, which threatens to rage on the re-assembling of Parliament in 
 the strife of parties, all alike lusting after power, I fear the combined 
 legislature will be left little time and less inclination to give the subject of 
 the Ordnance survey the consideration it demands. 
 
74 
 
 2. REDUCTION OF COST. 
 
 Credit is taken, and very fairly, for reducing the actual cost of surveys 
 to the extent of upwards of two-fifths, not below what I have stated it to 
 he at present, but below what it was some years ago. 
 
 But there is a fear that this economy may be carried so far as to affect 
 the accuracy of the work; for I observe, under Statement No. 7, that in 
 England no less than 136 civil assistants are employed, at from 2s. to 4s. 
 per day (besides 207 labourers, at the same rates); and I am assured 
 that a private surveyor cannot obtain an ordinary assistant under 5s. a 
 day. This number, therefore, must apply to boys or others, who give 
 their services more for the training than for the emoluments they receive. 
 
 3. REDUCTION OF PLANS BY PHOTOGRAPHY. 
 
 A doubt as to the accuracy of this process, expressed in Parliament, on 
 the 18th June, 1857, was felt so keenly by Colonel James, or so sympa¬ 
 thized with by General Peel, as to induce him to appoint the following 
 gentlemen as a Committee to inquire into and report upon the subject:— 
 
 SIR R ; I. MURCHISON, F.R.S. 
 
 R. STEPHENSON, Esq., M.P. 
 
 H. LOCKE, Esq., M.P. 
 
 CAPT. WASHINGTON, R.N. 
 
 COLONEL DAWSON, C.B. 
 
 PROFESSOR MILLER, F.R.S. 
 
 PROFESSOR WHEATSTONE, F.R.S. 
 
 The instructions to this Committee, though issued by General Peel, were, 
 no doubt, prepared by Colonel James, who was directed to afford every 
 assistance; and, like everything else passing through his hand, they are 
 most full, searching, and complete. He gives them in the report entire, 
 but the result only of the findings of the Committee; and I will venture 
 further to condense what I presume to he a condensed statement. 
 
 The Committee are of opinion that reductions by photography are more 
 accurate than by pentagraph, or by any other instrument or other known 
 means. 
 
 That the greatest amount of error does not exceed part of an inch, 
 much less than all plans are liable to from the expansion or contraction 
 of drawing paper. 
 
 In comparison with the pentagraph, the time required to make the 
 reduction is reduced to one-fourth for rural districts, and to one-ninth for 
 towns. 
 
 The saving of expense may be estimated from this; and, at Southamp¬ 
 ton, has amounted to <£1,615 per annum, and will amount to £31,952 
 “ during the progress of the surveywhich, by the way, at the same 
 rate, would extend the survey over a period of some twenty years. If, 
 therefore, the rate of progress does not go beyond the rate of cost, the 
 
75 
 
 seven, or, at most, eight years, in which time the Royal Commission pro¬ 
 mise, not merely 44 the completion of the one-inch map,” hut 44 the per¬ 
 fecting and publication of such surveys as we have recommended,” will be 
 somewhat exceeded. 
 
 But all such surmises are mere cavillings: the Royal Commission are 
 fully borne out in their promise, and the newly-elected House of Commons 
 must henceforth bear the blame of any further delay ; for Colonel James 
 has recorded, in thi^ report, that “the principal triangulation and the 
 initial levelling of the whole kingdom being now complete, the detail survey 
 scan be carried on at any rate which may be required, or in proportion to 
 tlho grants which may be made by Parliament.” 
 
 Nb\one doubts Colonel James’s word; and every one must acknowledge 
 that any^ one single member of General Peel’s chosen number of the tfrte 
 of sciencex as they are, might have been safely trusted to report on the 
 accuracy of \photographic reduction. But we should have liked to have 
 seen his decision. Why has not Colonel James favoured us with the 
 verbatim report v^f this Committee ? Printing is not so expensive as to 
 render the saving of a" mage or two any object, particularly when in this 
 same report of his own, hve is so lavish on—if not useless, much £ss inte¬ 
 resting matter. I should ILke to have seen this, though not shajhig in any 
 doubt as to either the expedition or the accuracy of the process 
 
 TOPOGRAPHICAL DEPOT? 
 
 This recent establishment, to be ultimately removed to a new building 
 contemplated on the parade of the Horse Guards, is after the French 
 model, which it seems is now to give the fashion to England in something 
 more than female dress. 
 
 We had fancied that the War Office had long since provided itself with 
 maps and plans, which even the Geographical Society could scarcely pro¬ 
 cure ; but it seems there was still a grand desideratum in this way, which 
 it will be Colonel James’s good fortune to supply. The depot which he 
 contemplates, and has been for some years forming, is to embrace the geo¬ 
 graphy and statistics of the whole earth, and to be made useful and acces¬ 
 sible to every department of Government, nay, even 44 to merchants and 
 others requiring precise information relative to different parts of the 
 world.” While the Secretary for War will be chary of laying his secret 
 archives bare to the public gaze, we fear the Royal Geographical Society 
 may think that their ground is being trenched on, and that their prero¬ 
 gatives are assailed. 
 
 We were astounded, the other day, at the large order which France 
 and Russia gave the London publishers, for maps of British possessions; 
 but Colonel James tells us, that 44 the French Government gave the officer 
 in charge of the Dep6t de la Guerre carte blanche for the purchase of such 
 maps; and the most perfect collection which has ever been made of the 
 maps and plans of this country and our possessions, is, in consequence , 
 to be found in that depot” How delightful, to have an ally that takes so 
 
76 
 
 much interest in us, and all that we prize dear ; but for what purpose can 
 he require some hundreds, of pounds worth more of our maps, when he has 
 already such a collection as even Colonel James’s British Topographical 
 Depot, cannot boast of? 
 
 “ Form, be ready to do or die! 
 
 Form, in Freedom’s name and the Queen’s, 
 
 True, that we have a faithful ally, 
 
 9nly the devil knows what he means.” 
 
 
 Estimates. 
 
 The Estimates for the Mrv'kys this year, 1859—60, are said to- 7 be the 
 sai^e as for last year, <£7^000 ; for England £27,000, Scotland 2, 000, 
 and Ireland £18^01)0]’'aft exclusive of the regimental pay and/allowanees 
 of thi} four companies of Eoyal Engineers employed on the survey. 
 
 Thtir introduction will afford an opportunity of discussing the subject in 
 Parlianent, if the Government does not see the ^rvacos^sity of expressly 
 bringing it forward; when, I trust, to use the / ^anguage of the Contour 
 Committee of 1854, “ the extreme importance o£ expediting, in the greatest 
 possible decree, the completion of the general one-inch map, in which 
 every class society is interested,” and on /which the progress of almost 
 every public inject more or less depends^ will be fully considered; and 
 then the decision cay Mir infirm/the first recommendation of the 
 Eoyal Cornmissimi,' without prejudice to any special surveys which the 
 exigencies of the State may demand for particular objects. 
 
 The pressure has already done some good, for Colonel James informs us 
 that surveyors are now engaged 44 in completing the one-inch map of Eng¬ 
 land, and connecting it with the south of Scotland, all of which is now 
 surveyed and drawn, and a large portion of it published on the one-inch 
 scaler May this soon be said of the north. 
 
 Now that I have again entered upon the subject, and carefully read over 
 this report of progress, I see much to notice, both in praise and blame; 
 but I must at once restrain my desire, or this Postscript will run on to the 
 length of another letter. 
 
 2\st May, 1859. 
 
 W. II ColHrTgridge, City Press-, 117 to 119, Aldersgate Stre<t, F,.C. 
 
* \ 
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page 27, 8th line from top, for Enclosure Commission? 
 
 „ 29, 11th line from bottom, 41 for effected, 
 
 . „ 38, 3rd line from top, for geological, 
 
 „ 49, 23rd line from top, for art on life, 
 
 „ 52, 14th line from top, for geographical. 
 
 
 >, read Inclosure Commissioners. 
 read affected. 
 read Zoological.- 
 read art in life. 
 read geological.