How to Read a Map
Conventional Signs & Lettering Used in Field Sketching
Conventional Signs enable you to give information on a sketch or map in a simple manner which is easily understood. In addition to the sign it is often necessary to give an additional description, e. g., whether a railway is double or single, the width of roads, the nature of woods (oak, pine, etc.), etc.
Whatever lettering is used should be legible and not interfere with the detail of the sketch. All lettering should be horizontal, except the names of roads, railways, rivers, and canals, which should be written along them.
Remember to fill in the North point on your sketch, as it is useless without it. Leave a margin of about an inch all round your sketch and state the scale that you have made your sketch, e. g., two inches to the mile.
The Morse Code of Signals is not hard to learn but it requires much practice to "receive" even when the message is sent slowly. The old-fashioned instruments were fitted with a ribbon on which the dots and dashes were recorded, but all modern operators depend on the ear.
The code is as follows:
Punctuation
Comma, . ––. ––
Semi-colon, Si
Colon, Ko
Period, .. –– ––..
Interrogation, ––.. ––.
Quotation, Qn
Paragraph, –– –– –– ––
Exclamation, –– –– ––
Parenthesis, Pn
Brackets, Bn
Dollar mark, Sx
Dash, Dx
Hyphen, Hx
Underline, Ux
Signals
4. Start me.
5. Have you anything for me?
9. Train order (or important military message)—give away.
13. Do you understand?
All sorts of changes may be made when the signals are committed to memory. Flags—up for a dot and side for a dash is one of the commonest and easiest for the beginner; or whistles—long and short blasts. Even the hand or a hat may be substituted; coughing, stamping, and scratching with the foot or a bit of stick. In fact endless changes may be invented for use with this Code.