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These surveyors, who depended upon surface transport,
established map control for about 25 per cent of the Island, and
the surveyors of the Army Survey Establishment for about 5 per
cent. In addition, a helicopter-equipped party of Topographical
Survey was employed for two months in 1951 and four months in
1952 and during these periods secured map control for approxi-
mately two-thirds of the Island.
Surveys by the Hydrographic Service, undertaken in con-
nection with charting activities, proved a valuable addition, and
the great advantage and satisfaction of being able to start map-
ping control from triangulation stations of the Geodetic Survey
was an important factor in this project.
When map compilation commenced in October 1949, the
Topographical Survey was engaged in training personnel with the
right type of eyesight to operate its recently acquired multiplex
units. Since these were the first stereo-plotters employed by
the Survey, it is not surprising to find that as the work pro-
gressed many changes were made in photogrammetrical and
associated compilation techniques. These changes in procedures
were introduced in stages as experience and confidence were
gained. Much useful information, freely given by those engaged
on similar work in the United States, was assimilated. The
history of these developments can be foilowed best by explaining
the methods used on the different blocks of maps compiled.
The first map sheets to be compiled consisted of a block
of ten in the Bonavista-Trinity Bay area. Initially, the work
was complicated by a change in the method of plotting co-
ordinates, the old system of plotting by geographical position
being superceded by the rectangular co-ordinate system. The
advantages of this new system with Transverse Mercator Co-
ordinates soon became apparent, and these maps were plotted
by the conventional multiplex bridging method at a scale of
1:16,000. Horizontal control was required at each end of the six
or seven overlap bridges, and vertical control at both ends and
in the middle. After adjustment on the multiplex tables, the
operators plotted map detail in pencil on gridded paper plots.
These plots were subsequently inked, mounted on metal sheets
and photographically reduced to 1:40,000 scale. Contact paper
positives were then mounted with rubber cement on gridded paper