NEW MAPS FOR OLD.
ere efts EDITOR OF TIM •SPIL0CETOR.1 SIR,—I notice in your last issue that a correspondent has difficulty with my statement that the one-inch and six-inch
Ordnance Survey maps are well known and consulted in this library, and yet the public do not buy them because they are not available in a convenient separate form. Perhaps I should have been more precise, and have said that these maps are consulted in the reference department of the library, where they are bound in large volumes, with index maps. I think, however, I owe the Ordnance Department an apology. I have travelled, on cycle and on foot, over most of Scotland, and over a considerable part of England and the North of Ireland. I always carry maps—Bartholomew's two-miles-to-the-inch, or Johnston's, with Baddeley's "Thorough" Guides—and I confess that until now I was not aware that the Ordnance Survey Department publish sectional maps of the kind I referred to, mounted on cloth, at a small price. Not only so, but the Ordnance Survey agents in this district are up to this moment in the same position. Needless to say, this applies also to the map-using public, not only in this district, but wherever my own excursions have taken me.
May I add that I have dealt for a good many years with the Ordnance Survey Department, taking sets as published of the one-inch and six-inch maps, and I noted with much interest in last year's " Report of the Progress of the Ordnance Survey" (which we stock periodically) that a map two miles
to the inch, which I specially like, had been begun for our district ? Unfortunately its progress was suspended by
pressure of other work. With all this, I never saw it stated, either in that official publication or elsewhere, that independent small-scale maps, mounted (on cloth, I presume), are published by the Department at prices that can compare favourably
with the admirable maps I have named. Since writing last, however, I have gone to Mr. Fisher Unwin's list, and I find there the following Ordnance maps covering the district:— (1) Ordnance Survey map, four miles to one inch.—On paper, is. net per sheet ; mounted, ls. 6d. net ; cut into sections and mounted to fold, 1s. per sheet extra, or for two or more sheets mounted together, 9d. per sheet extra.
(2) Ordnance Survey map, one mile to one inch.—On paper, ls. 6d. net per sheet ; cut into sections and mounted, ls. net per sheet extra. (One would need, of course, two of these to cover the same ground as the 2s. cloth-mounted Bartholomew.) (3) Special map of the district round the town.—On thin paper, ls. 3d. net.
That is what the Ordnance Survey can do for our distric in the way of mounted maps. For certain other districts they
can do more ; but I confess it is more than I knew of, and I have no doubt that others are in the same position. I may say that none of these maps suits me so well as, say, Bartholomew's two-miles-to-the-inch on cloth ; but they must suit a great many people, and I would suggest that as a beginning to a wider publication of their bandy, separate maps, the Department might supply to every public library a complete price-list of their whole series of map publications. —With apologies for the length of this letter, I am, Sir, &c.,
PUBLIC LIBRARIAN.
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