THE DESCRIPTIVE ATLAS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 768, 9 April 1954, Page 5

THE DESCRIPTIVE ATLAS

Sir,-As assistants who shared in the work on the original project for a Historical Atlas of New Zealand, we feel very grateful to Professor F. L. W. Wood for enlightening your readers as to the true significance of the new plans for a New Zealand Atlas. From our knowledge and experience of the work involved in the preparation of historical maps afd letterpress, we are convinced that the new plans, the new committee and those commissioned to do the new work cannot achieve the high standards of scholarship aspited to by all trained historians and achieved by the Department of Internal Affairs in many of its past publications. In the past, wartime coftiditions, Government parsimony and a policy of drift denied to those engaged upon this work the resources needed to complete it and filled them with frustration and at times even hopelessness. Now it seems to have been decided to reject the large amount of research already done, and the awareness of limitations, possibilities and pitfalls gained by the former staff. 2 The descriptive Atlas claims to embody the earlier Atlas’s aim "to provide within the limits set by cartography and historical research a comprehensive record of New Zealand’s development from the beginning of its known history to the present." But this claim is clearly contradicted by the subsequent account of the pr ed atlas’s far too meagre contents "a page size. For instance, how many aspects of New Zealand farming or industry can be shown on two pages 10in. by 12in.? And on this page most exploration journeys would be méaningless -it could not attempt to show relief; the lines of exploration tfips would be quite inaccurate, and many would appear ridiculously short (e.g, those on the very difficult mountain country of Westland). Let the reader try to think of fitting the South Island’s eighty-odd exploration journeys into a map of. this size. Further, if the page size is to be 10in. by 12in. (the same size as The Listener page), it would accommodate Canterbury province quite comfortably on the proposed scale of 1: 1,000,000; but, on that scale, there are over 30 inches beane Stewart Island and Cape Farewe he excuse that the original atlas scheme has been dropped because technical skills such as lettering have changed in recent years seems a quite ill-informed attempt to confuse the public. In many sections, research had been almost completed, while draughting work had been scarcely begun. And surely it is naive to suggest that demand for the original Atlas would depend on centennial publicity, rather than on its own merits. We are left wondering who are the people of New Zealand who will find the Descriptive Atlas "of inestimable value." At least we must warn the _ serious student that this is the death, not the reincarnation. of the Historica! Atlas.

N.

TAYLOR.

M. B.

BOYD

(Wellington).