Beautiful and delicate in finish as is all the work of the copperplate engravers on the Ordnance Survey, there is perhaps no branch in which they so peculiarly excel as in their delineation of hills on the one inch maps.
III.
It is impossible in the limits of a single paper to attempt to describe the methods and processes of publication which are carried at the headquarters of the Ordnance Survey at Southampton.
Carefully prepared treatises on the subject have been written by officers engaged in the work, and for clear and concise description none are better than the series of articles by Captain H. Sankey, R. E., published in Engineering, in 1888.
There are two points of great interest in connection with the Ordnance Survey which cannot be neglected. The one its military organization, and the other the economy of its methods of publication.
Of its military organization, which has continued since the first surveys were made for military purposes, it may be said that the conservative precision of its methods of field work are best adapted for military control and discipline. Under the successive superintendence of highly educated officers of the Royal Engineer Corps, whose patriotic efforts have been to secure efficiency and economy in the service, the country has greatly profited.
Many of the improvements and inventions that have made possible the publication of maps of all scales at the lowest possible cost, are the results of experiments made by these officers.
It should not be forgotten in addition that as a branch of the War Office and the Publishing Department of the Intelligence Branch, military supervision is essential. Its offices are therefore not open for public inspection except on proper introduction.
The author had the rare privilege of spending three months at the Southampton office in 1888, through the introduction of the director of the Geological Survey, and the request of our recent minister in London, Mr. Phelps.
Nothing could have exceeded the courtesy and hospitality of the director of the survey, Sir Charles W. Wilson, and the officers in charge of the various departments, not alone in granting the necessary authority to inspect every branch of the work, but in lending personal aid and men for that purpose.