I do not think that either of these two aspects is present in onr work: we did 
not co-operate to reach the solution of a scientific problem; we did not join our forces 
to obtain a more universally valid unique result. 
On the other hand, if the aim of these collective researches had only been the 
wish to verify the experimental results from a statistical point of view, I think I am 
right in saying that the statistical value of these researches is very poor just for the 
constitutional lack of homogeneity of the proofs and for their numerical exiguity. 
The evident aim of this collaboration was and is: to collect a complete, largely 
informative and detailed documentation on the operative proceedings characteristic 
of different scientific and technical organizations; to make the material homogeneous, 
as much as possible, in order to facilitate its comprehension by the readers and users 
and to assure, within certain limits, that it is trustworthy and, therefore, reproducible 
in analogous situations; at last, to make the results evident, to begin, if not to deepen, 
an analysis, to underline the homogeneousness and the differences of the proceedings 
and their consequences on the results. 
Only if interpreted in this sense, the work that, for so many years, experts of 
several countries have done for the good result of these proofs, has a value, a meaning, 
a utility. 
Therefore, we have to consider in this sense the effort made in order to finish this 
report and to make it almost a collection of the different operative proceedings: 
this is the reason that justifies also the amplitude and the great quantity of documents 
collected in this Report. 
This aspect of the international collaboration work may seem to lessen the impor 
tance of the work itself; moreover, the time, money and energy spent in its realization 
may not seem justified. 
We can find all these proceedings already documented in many papers full of 
technical and scientific information. Why, then, do we repeat this documentation? 
To these objections it is easy to reply that only a group of works with a character 
of homogeneity in the structure of its premises could satisfy the user searching for the 
most convenient methods of work. 
Only in this way we could make comparisons, not for an evaluation of absolute 
value, but for the practical utility of the different operative methods. Moreover, 
only a concomitant international exposition could be an incitement to amplify the 
researches and the applications and to make active theoretical schemata that, till 
then, had remained at the state of proposition. 
In the exposition of these general considerations, as introduction to the Group 
work Report, we cannot help analysing, after the advantages, the faults and the 
dangers of a work of international character like this. 
The first and main danger is that the work may become a competition, that is: 
the unavoidable latent rivalries among views, directions, proceedings, instrumentations 
of national character and also among men who direct it, may prevail, altering the 
spirit of the common work and destroying its meaning. 
Also a deep wish to do a good job may be dangerous if it brings about results 
that are not altered, but can’t be repeated; this may happen if one looks for the best 
results through operations extraneous to the practical and economic rule, rather than 
through the exposition of an operative proceeding that can be normally used. 
One of the difficulties, in the international works carried out separately by diffe 
rent centres, springs from the heterogeneousness of the participant organizations, 
ranging from big national organizations of cartographic production, to university 
research institutes.