104 
FIRST MEETING HELD ON WEDNESDAY, 14th SEPTEMBER, 1960 
In the Chair: Prof G. CassiNis, President 
Presentation of the General Report 
Prof M. CUNIETTI (Interpretation read by 
Miss Togliatti): Resolution number 3 adopted 
by the Commission at the end of the Stockholm 
Congress recommends the continuation of the 
“essais controlés” also in the period 1956/1960, 
and asks the President to fix the new rules aided 
by the experience already acquired and in prior 
consultation with the Commission’s experts. 
Moreover in the spirit of the Resolutions 
adopted at that time, there were embodied some 
fundamental principles intended as a guide to 
be followed in the creation of new “essais”. Four 
out of the five suggestions contained therein 
have been fully respected in the Rules published 
in the summer of 1958, namely, the essais’ 
practical character, the candidates’ freedom to 
choose the methods they prefer, the abolition of 
the obligation to work on foreign polygons and 
the candidates’ obligation to supply a detailed 
report of the work done. 
On the contrary, the fifth suggestion con- 
cerning the increase of discipline and controls 
during the work was not added as a part of the 
new rules. There were many reasons for doing 
this, above all both through the personal con- 
tacts and by what has appeared from the Brus- 
sels discussion on the rules prepared at first by 
the Commission III President and sent out by 
circular No. 1. The desire was clearly expressed 
to diminish more and more the competitive 
character of the essais, giving them instead an 
experimental, scientific research appearance in- 
spired by mutual trust and in a spirit of full 
collaboration. 
It is evident, therefore, that severe control 
measures could never have agreed with such an 
attitude. On the other hand, to increase the 
proper control would have meant a considerable 
financial burden and would probably present a 
scarcely feasible task for the President, if ap- 
proached in all seriousness, owing to the dif- 
ficulties of effectively carrying it out in all its 
stages. 
Any type of control ought to have granted a 
partial feeling of trust to the organisations carry- 
ing out the work, even if only in limited sectors, 
and this trust could very well be then extended 
also to other sectors without impairing at all the 
results. Even exercising a control from afar by 
enforcing the periodical sending of measurement 
data and of results of calculation would entail 
a colossal amount of work. The checking of the 
data and calculations is hardly imaginable, 
especially in the present day experimental 
researches, where so very different methods and 
proceedings have to be compared; for instance, 
a control of the analytical triangulation during 
its execution is, in fact, quite impossible to 
conceive and not even justifiable, because of 
its very nature the analytical triangulation con- 
stitutes an automatic procedure with which we 
cannot interfere. Analytical triangulation, there- 
fore, exercises by itself an automatic control on 
all the research collaborators. 
In June, 1958, a circular was sent out to rap- 
porteurs, Commission experts, and all the 
national societies belonging to the ISP, by 
which the directions given in the first Rules were 
clearly modified in the manner stated above. All 
those who received the circular were invited to 
express their opinion, make remarks and suggest 
amendments. The first paragraph of the Rules, 
where the scientific character of the experiments 
is stated, is the following: in accordance with the 
Resolutions adopted by the Eighth Congress of 
the ISP, Stockholm, July 1956, Commission III 
intends to continue the experimental researches 
that aroused great interest during the proceeding 
four years. These works deal with the highly 
topical problem of large blocks of strips. Owing 
to the great practical interest of these experi- 
ments consideration must be given to the dif- 
ferent experimental procedures and attention 
must not be limited to a comparison of the 
results simply on the basis of the standard errors 
in control points. 
The aim. of the experiments organised by 
Commission III is to provide a vivid and prac- 
tical documentation of the different methods of 
carrying out the several operational steps for a 
map of a given average precision. Thus these 
researches exclude anything in the nature of 
competition. The President of Commission III 
organises the work and watches its various 
stages. Persons intending to take part must 
undertake to supply their results together with a 
detailed description of the methods used, and 
shall follow the rules laid down by Commission 
III. Finally, the rules conclude with this agree- 
ment: "Commission III shall publish all the 
reports in the General Report that the Commis- 
sion will submit to the Ninth Congress of the