1852.

Defects of existing Maps.

183

have recently sprung up unknown to the map, though numbering a much larger population than many old boroughs. This is especially true in the rich mining and manufacturing districts, which have become almost new regions since that survey was made. In the purely agricultural, and even pastoral districts, time has wrought similar, though it may be less extensive changes; and houses and farms figure in the map, now scarce known even to tradition, or whose place is only marked by the mouldering fragments of some ruined wall. On the other hand, the new houses, the symbols, as they may well be called, of modern improvement, have no place in maps pretending to represent the present, but which are really pictures of a long forgotten state of things. Under the rapid changes in this age of canals, steamboats, and railways, the map has almost an antiquarian interest; we study it as a record of a byegone period, somewhat as the geologist does the stony monuments of the earth in search of the records of extinct creations.

The defects in the physical geography of the country have not the same excuse. Modern improvements have indeed drained many lakes, which, though seen in the old map, no longer exist in nature; like the well-known Loch Spynie near Elgin. Similar instances might be pointed out in Aberdeenshire, in Kinross, Fife, and other parts of the kingdom. More inexcusable is the entire omission of many remarkable lakes, of which it may be enough to mention Loch Coruisk in Skye, now só well known in the wild legends of the Border Minstrel; and so well worthy to be known to all lovers of the savage sublimity of nature, as bearing away the prize of desert dignity' from all the wild and sublime scenes of our northern land.

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The orographical features of the country are even more imperfectly represented. For this the scale of the map is partly to blame, it being impossible within its limits to give an accurate picture of the complex structure of a mountain region like Scotland. But the best use has in many cases not been made of the means at the disposal of the engraver. Hills are often represented far out of their true position, or transferred to the midst of plains, whilst the level lands usurp their place. The shading seldom gives any true intimation of the form or relative dimensions of mountains, often magnifying the low and degrading those of chief dignity. The connexion of the summits and the direction of the ridges have been still more rarely attended to, so that many curious errors of this kind have been committed. Macculloch long ago noticed how in the mountain land extending from Cruachan to the moor of Rannoch, a wide open valley in nature was transformed in the map into a wall of lofty mountains, wholly obscuring the junction of two impor

tant rock formations. In all this stern and rocky region, including the deer forest around the Black Mount, the engraver, indeed, seems to have been guided in drawing the ridges rather by the supposed line of watershed than by consulting nature. The two beautiful conical summits of the Buachaille Etive, standing like guardian shepherds' (such is the meaning of their native name) at the entrance to that noble glen, are especially disfigured. In this vicinity, and all towards Ben Nevis, the direction of the mountain ridges, so clearly seen on the ground, is entirely lost on the map. The form of Ben Nevis too, now the undoubted monarch of our British mountains, is wholly misrepresented; and even in absolute magnitude it seems rivalled by Mealfourvonie, though the latter, seen from the giant on the south, or even from Ben Wyvis on the north, is but a molehill in the deep gorge of the Great Glen. Innumerable similar instances might be adduced in this Highland portion of the map, where the engraver, in utter ignorance, or in wanton despite of nature, has drawn his mountain ridges with most religious fidelity round and round each river basin. Geographers thus, as Humboldt well says, rival in zeal the Mongol travellers and Buddhist pilgrims, who, through veneration for the divortia aquarum, raise heaps of stones between the sources of rivers. So faithfully is this done, that no one from the map would ever discover that the Garry, bursting through the mountain ridge at Killiecrankie (even the very name is not found in the map) forms a pass, in whose defiles the fate of nations and dynasties might be, as believed without the testimony of history to have been, at stake. Turning his eye to Schiehallien, the philosopher in vain inquires why, of all the mountains of Britain, it was selected as the one to determine the density of the earth? Such a puny ridge, buried amidst a thousand other ridges, he instinctively exclaims, cannot be the fine isolated cone which men of science from the far south sought out in the wilds of Rannoch !

Are other parts of the country better represented? Assuredly not Rasay, Benbecula, or Lewis, of which the interior geography is not erroneous, only because it is entirely omitted. Not Banff, or Aberdeen, or Fife, in which the undulations of the ground, so important, in the last especially, to the geologist, are curiously perverted. Not the Border Land, where the south-west ridge of the Cheviots is made to wheel boldly round the sources of the Teviot and join on to the great mountain chain of the south, from which both physically and geologically it is utterly distinct. By this error a highly interesting portion

*Humboldt, Asie Central, tom. ii. P. 122.

1852.

Progress of the Survey.

185

of country is entirely misrepresented, and, as we shall subsequently see, the very facts of history obscured. Could the same authority be trusted, the Tarras, notorious in all ages on the border for its wild impetuosity, the impregnable retreat, in whose recesses the robbers of the Debateable Land set at defiance the laws of both kingdoms, flows through a plain almost as smooth as the Solway moss. If these errors were limited to the map we might be silent, but from it they find their way into books of physical geography and geology of high reputation, and from these are copied into numerous compilations in endless succession. Macculloch, looking rather at the map than at the country, tells us that no order is to be found in the mountains of Scotland; and the assertion finds but too ready credence with men who have not the opportunity or the ability to study nature with their own eyes. For in every part of Scotland where we have been, the mountain ridges, seen from commanding summits, have arranged themselves, as if marshalled in battle-array, into rank and file, ribbing the country from N. E. to S. W., from the Atlantic to the German Ocean, and telling even in their external features of the fierce convulsions, the Titanic writhings, of the earth's crust in long past ages.

Some of these errors have been corrected, and these omissions supplied in the more recent maps, but many of the most important defects still remain. Excellent surveys have also been made of several counties, and maps of them published on a large scale, among which may be mentioned Lanarkshire, by Forrest (scale 1 inch to the mile); Linlithgow, by the same (scale 1 inch to the mile); Mid Lothian, by Knox (scale 1 inch to the mile); and Edinburgh, Fife, and Haddington, by Greenwood. The basins of the Forth, Tay, and Clyde, by Mr. Knox, on the scale of half an inch to the mile, are also very useful maps, containing many improvements on the older surveys. Such maps are, however, confined chiefly to the richer and more cultivated parts of the country, and even in these, there is reason to believe, they did not pay the expenses. In the wilder and more remote regions, too, such of them as we have tested were far from being complete; many natural features, interesting perhaps chiefly to the wandering geologist, but often essential for his objects, being entirely omitted. In few of them are the political boundaries, either of parishes or counties, accurately represented, and in some cases could perhaps now be hardly discovered.

Such then was and is the state of the geography of Scotlanda state almost without parallel in any other part of Europe. The Government has not been altogether indifferent to the scandal of

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such a shameful neglect of the topography of one important part of the kingdom. So early as 1809 the great triangulation for the Ordnance Survey was extended to Scotland, but the operations were suspended during the three following years, in order to enable persons who had been employed there to carry forward the subordinate triangulation required for constructing the detail maps in South Britain.' In 1814 observations were resumed in Scotland, and the zenith sector used on the stations of Kellie Law in Fifeshire, and Cowhithe Hill in Banffshire. The principal triangulation proceeded steadily in the following years to 1817, when the sector was used on Batta Island, in Zetland, and a new base line measured on Belhelvie Links, near Aberdeen. In 1818 and 1819 these primary operations were continued, and a sum of money first specially voted for the survey of Scotland. In 1820 they were suspended, but resumed in 1821 and 1822 in Zetland, Orkney, and the Hebrides. In 1823 the large theodolite was wanted for the principal triangulation of South Britain, and the survey of Scotland was again deferred. The survey of Ireland having commenced in 1824, the principal triangulation of Scotland remained in abeyance till 1838, though a detail survey, afterwards found of no use, was kept on foot in the counties of Wigton and Ayr for a few years longer.

This

It thus appears that, even from the commencement of the survey, its progress in Scotland has been repeatedly postponed, whenever the wants of the other portions of the kingdom were thought to require the use of either the men or the instruments. First England, and then Ireland, was preferred before her. It is stated, indeed, by one witness, in part extenuation of this treatment, that from 1809 to 1823 every farthing spent on 'the Scotch triangulation came out of the English vote.' statement is, however, hardly accurate, as the English survey was from the beginning considered only as a portion of a great national map to extend over the whole island, as fully appears from General Roy's statements. The same witness, a few pages before, also admits that in 1819 grants were first made for Scotland, though the pittance was so miserably small that he might well be excused for forgetting it.*

The survey, as just stated, was resumed in 1838, when the principal triangulation was continued. During the interval that had elapsed, the marks at the principal stations had nearly all fallen down, and were so obliterated that the parties sent out

*From 1819 to 1837-8, 5095l. 15s. 1d. was voted and expended. (Col. Hall, Evidence, § 828. p. 121.; § 793. p. 118.)

1852.

Indignation at its Suspension.

187

to reconstruct them had often much difficulty, and were not always successful, in finding the place where they stood, though, as Colonel Colby tells us, the general knowledge of the utility of a correct survey in Scotland had induced the inhabitants to 'prevent their destruction.'* The survey, however, was not renewed until the national indignation at its delay was strongly excited and manifested in frequent remonstrances. The subject was first taken up in 1834 by the British Association for the Advancement of Science, then meeting at Edinburgh, and for the time inspired with something of Scottish national feeling. The prime instigator of the movement was Sir Roderick Murchison, who in this cause has never forgotten his native Highlands, on whose rocky shores some of his earliest scientific laurels were gathered. When tracing out the geology of the north and west, he had strongly felt the want of an accurate map, and now, when this powerful body of science was met on the spot, and able to judge for themselves, he led them on to make this want and its remedy known to Government. This was, indeed, the first appeal which this migratory Parliament of Science' ventured to make to the Minister of the day; and the result, as given in documents printed by order of the House of Commons, which are cited at the head of this Article, was a fair promise that Scotland should have more justice in future. The energetic summons of the geologist met a ready response in many other quarters, and his appeals in behalf of Scotland were reechoed from the Royal Society, the Wernerian Society, headed by its distinguished president, Professor Jameson, the father of Scottish geologists, the Highland Society, and many other scientific and public bodies. The Highland Society, perhaps the truest representative of the feelings of the landed proprietors, first remonstrated in 1837, as the secretary well remarks, not with reference to the dilatory progress of the Scotch survey, but with reference to the total cessation of it.' Though resumed in 1838, the sum of money voted for the survey was so small, and its progress so slow, that, were we not ashamed to impute such paltry motives to the Government, we should regard the vote rather as dictated by a desire to appear to be doing something than from any wish to promote the survey. This will appear from the following statement of the sums voted and expended on the survey of Scotland from 1819, which we have reduced to the form of a table.†

* Return on Ordnance Survey, April, 1843, p. 2.

†There is some difficulty in getting at the truth in this matter, as the sums expended since 1846, given by Colonel Hall in his evidence,