THE DESCRIPTIVE ATLAS
Sir,-As yet another ex-worker on the deceased Historical Atlas, and therefore slightly acquainted with some of the problems of atlas making, I am awed by the optimism of the team undertaking to produce the new Descriptive Atlas. It is particularly impressive as two important members, the editor and the writer of the letterpress, have other jobs already, and willbe working on their atlas only part-time. Granted that they are confining their attention to the economic aspects of New Zealand’s development, omitting all the Maori and purely historical matter that the Historical Atlas included, they: still have an unwieldy task before them. Most of the Historical Atlas work that comes within the field of the Descriptive Atlas, e.g., population and economic maps, will, on the latter’s proposed page size, be unusable, so they will have to-start from scratch. Of course, it can be urged that for small-scale maps accuracy does not matter, and rough approximations can be quickly produced-but are such maps really worth doing? Certainly there is a large need felt in many homes and schools, let alone universities, for good geographical maps of New Zealand, and presumably the Descriptive Atlas would attempt these. But again there is the question of size. A good geographical map of either island needs to be over two feet long, and cut-
ting the islands up on several pages lessens the effective showing of relief, communications, etc. The Lands and Survey Department in their recently-issued sheets of the North and South Islands on the scale of 1: 1,000,000 have already provided a most.useful map. The social scierice bulletins of the School Publications Branch, produced by authors already possessing special knowledge of their subjects, "wilf in time cover many of the fields proposed for the Descriptive Atlas. Would it not be better to widen the facilities of these existing institutions, and ‘make their work more easily available ‘to. the public,’ rather than to embark on another atlas voyage?
FRANCES
PORTER
(Wellington),
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 777, 11 June 1954, Page 5
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329THE DESCRIPTIVE ATLAS New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 777, 11 June 1954, Page 5
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