I - THE COLLECTION OF INFORMATION 
1. ¥ Two years ago, at the Paris Sympo- 
sium of the ISP Commission IV, the founda- 
tions were laid of an international inquiry 
about the situation of the cartographic revi- 
sion in the world. This was mainly due to the 
initiative of some outstanding Colleagues 
— Dr. Gamble, Chief Eng. Ducher, : Prof. 
Krauss, Prof. Van Zuylen — who, . considering 
the practical unfeasibility of an international 
experimental Essay, suggested to limit our 
research to a profound inquiry on the actual 
state of the map revision in the world. A spe- 
cial Questionnaire ‘had to be prepared and 
sent to all concerned people and Agencies. 
I must confess that when very willingly 
I accepted this sensible proposal, I didn't 
realize the difficulties of this undertaking, nor 
the hardness of the work to be done, both 
from a technical and a practical point of 
view. On the other side, I did not even realize 
the relevant interest that this subject was to 
excite in the whole world of the map makers, 
and particularly in the people responsible for 
operative cartography. This interest is de- 
monstrated by the figures of the following 
final balance : 
Cartographic Agencies (generally 
public Agencies) to which the Ques- 
tionnaire was forwarded ........ 
Countries concerned in the request 54 
Cartographic Agencies who have 
answered to the Ouestionnaire 
63 
24 
Countries concerned in the answer 
The detail of this situation is reported 
in Enclosure 1. As you can see, the support 
we received was really important, both for 
quality and quantity ; the answers give a lar- 
gely significant statistic sample, which may 
throw light on many important subjects. I 
am glad to say that this interest has fully 
rewarded the work that we all have done, so 
in questioning as in answering, and allows us 
all to hope that our work was not useless. 
2. - Now it is important to operate in such 
a way that this most precious harvest of infor- 
mation be nor wasted or degraded, not even 
in the least part ; that is, that all information 
be brought to everyone's knowledge in the 
most compact and complete and faithful way. 
In fact, a subjective influence may weigh on 
the interpretation of the news collected — as 
it is necessarily done by a single person — 
and therefore it is opportune that it can be 
controlled and corrected by anyone, and parti- 
cularly by them who have given the answers. 
The perfect way to obtain this purpose 
was to publish the complete answers as they 
reached us ; but. this meant to publish a volu- 
me of more than 700 pages, and neither you 
gentlemen, nor our beloved President would 
never forgive it me. We deemed therefore 
opportune to synthetize each answer in only 
one page, onto an expressly prepared record ; 
and to publish only these pages, about 64 in 
total. This abridgement of already compacted 
news, like those which are given in an answer 
to a questionnaire, was not easy at all; the 
conceptual and technical difficulties, the lin- 
guistic troubles, the tiranny of space have 
obliged us to a real « tour de force ». We are 
afraid, alas, that not always we have been 
equal to the task, and that not always we 
have attained the objects we mentioned abo- 
ve ; but we hope that everyone who has coope- 
rated in this inquiry will kindly control our 
work, and eventually correct and complete it 
for a possible second edition. 
All the records are collected in Enclo- 
sure 3 (*); while in Enclosure 2 we have 
reported a blank copy of the Questionnaire, 
so that also those who did not receive it may 
have an idea of its nature and of the proposed 
questions. The subsequence of the records is 
in alphabetic order of Countries ; a progressi- 
ve figure of two digits is allotted to each Coun- 
try, while a third digit distinguishes the Agen- 
cies of that Country. Enclosure 1 facilitates 
the search and individuation of each answer. 
3. - The organization of the records in 
Enclosure 3 is easily intelligible by examining 
a specimen. The record is subdivided into 
three parts : 
a) information on the maps produced by 
the concerned Agency or Firm. Since we deal 
with map revision, it is first necessary to 
know what is being revised, as the nature of 
the preexisting map obviously has influence 
on the whole following speech. So the map 
scale and type, the number of colours, the 
type of publication, the production procedu- 
res, etc., are reported ; 
b) information on the actual map revi- 
sion done at the Agency. Here is the Question-