53
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
PEPEC.O. 885
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
20 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
5 Native Surveyors.
European Draftsman.
5 Native Clerks and Draftsmen
2 Learners.
In addition to the staff of the Survey Department proper, there is also in the
Survey School :—
European Instructor (appointed but not yet joined) at Native Instructor at ...
7 Pupils (7 more to join shortly).
General Organization.
£540 200
The personnel is naturally divided into a field and an office staff, but beyond this no attempt has been made to separate the Department into definite branches, One surveyor (Mr. Meldrum) was trigonometrical, cadastral, and topographical. engaged specifically for the execution of property surveys for the Commissioner of With this exception, the surveyors are expected to be able to do all classes of work, and are put indifferently to precise traverses, rough compass work, baro- metric levelling, or contouring.
Lands.
It need hardly be pointed out that this is disastrous to efficiency and that, while such want of method might be permissible or even necessary in a new establishment just starting work, it is quite intolerable in a department which has been in existence for many years. It is also directly contrary to the instructions given to the present Director when he was appointed in 1906.
In general, throughout the whole department there is a lamentable absence of system and order.
Thus, the Director has never drawn up any standing instructions to his staff as to the conduct of the various operations of survey, no precise limits of error for the different classes of work have been laid down, and no systematic methods of checking both the precision and the cost of the surveyors' work have been evolved.
It is thus difficult to estimate the real value of the surveys done, but it is clear in general that the mistake has lain rather on the side of over-elaboration than in the contrary direction. A large sum of money in the aggregate has been wasted upon needless precision in minor operations.
The native clerks and The arrangement of the work in the office is slovenly. draftsmen are of a quite high order of intelligence, and there is no lack of boys with good elementary education as recruits, apart from the pupils in the Survey School. Given this, it should have been an easy matter to train and organize a really efficient computing and drafting section. In dealing with a native staff it is imperatively necessary that the whole procedure should be reduced to a strict routine and that the principle of the division of labour should be adopted to the fullest possible extent. No sort of attempt in this direction has been made. No definite rules have been laid down as to the process which a traverse field book, for example, received in the office goes through; sometimes the computations are made by the native drafting staff, sometimes by the surveyor, and no steps are taken to ensure that work not up to the requisite standard is automatically rejected.
It will be understood that this is not meant to imply that the Director has taken no precautions to test the work. So far from this being the case, he claims that he has examined it all himself, and, as already stated, the danger lies rather in over, than under, precision. This, however, is not sufficient. What is required is that the checking both of the field work and of the computations and plotting should be as far as practicable of a mechanical character, and that the office routine should be so arranged that errors are necessarily revealed at any stage where they arise. Other examples of lack of system will occur in the review of the actual survey work in progress.
Scope and Cost of Surveys.
It is officially laid down that the Director of Surveys is responsible for the mapping of the whole Protectorate. Actually, his Department has done nothing outside the Western Province, with the exception of the astronomical fixation of a few points.
The total cost to the Protectorate during the last few years has been as
follows:-
1901-2
£2,022 (including Land Office)
1902-3
3,008
1903-4
1904-5
3,178 3,383
"
13
$3
1905 (March 31st to Dec. 31st)
3,619
17
*
1906
6,758
35
1907
1908
1909
8,587 (Survey Department only) 9,073 12,359 (estimate)
17
"
For this expenditure the Survey Department can show :-
(1) A number of property plans for legal, Land Office, railway and other pur- poses, chiefly in the vicinity of Lagos, the total area covered being small.
Contoured plans for Lagos water supply schemes.
Large scale plans of varying degrees of precision of eight towns in the
interior.
(4) A network of main traverse lines covering the Western Province, 1,900
miles in total length.
(5) A network of compass traverse lines over about three-quarters of the
above area.
(6) A network of barometric heights, with a reputed error of 10 feet.
A contour survey of an incomplete character and of small value, covering
about 13,000 square miles.
(8) The fixation of both astronomical co-ordinates of 55 points.
(9) Some hydrographical surveys carried out in conjunction with the Marine
Department.
The above details, both of expenditure and of output, do not take account of the Southern Nigeria (now Eastern Province) survey under Captain Woodroffe, R.E., 1901-6. An account of this is given in the report of the Colonial Survey Committee for 1906-7.
1
As all the mapping hitherto done by the Department is confined to the peaceful and settled parts of the Protectorate, and as, moreover, such maps as have been produced show only the roads and tracks with little or no detail away from them, the work has not yet proved of any appreciable value for military purposes.
Particular attention must be directed to the fact that, in despite of the very definite instructions contained in the Secretary of State's letter of the 18th March, 1908,* no complete topographical map of any area of the country has yet been made, nor has the Director taken any effective steps towards the attainment of this object.
Details of Surrey Work.
(1) Triangulation.-No triangulation has been attempted. The Director main- tains that the country is not suitable for the work, and that it is imperative to base the mapping upon traverses only. This opinion cannot be accepted. There is a large area of country in the hinterland of Lagos which is well adapted for triangula- tion, over which the detail survey could be made by plane table in the ordinary way. With the use of tree or scaffold stations there is probably no part of the Western Province over which a principal triangulation could not have been carried at no very extravagant cost, though in the forest districts the detail would have to be based upon traverse lines run between the main points or, better, between secondary points, on or near roads, observed from the main points.
Steps should at once be taken for starting the triangulation in the open country, say, conveniently near Ibadan, and extending thence in all directions.
(2) Main Traverses.—,
-As projected at present, the skeleton of the future map of the Western Province consists of a network of traverse lines, executed with 6-inch Vernier theodolites and steel tapes. Fixed marks, generally cut on the trunks of large trees, have been left at about five-mile intervals.
The accuracy of these lines is sufficient as the horizontal basis of a map. Field books are kept in pencil, and are supposed to be sent in to the Headquarter Office weekly. This rule is, apparently, not very rigorously observed.
26648
• No. 115 in Miscellaneous No. 210.
D 3