Worsley, when Sir William, then Dr., Petty, who had come to Ireland in 1652, as physician to the forces and to the household and family of the Lieut.General, being a man of extraordinary acuteness of intellect and energy of character, came forward to impeach and condemn the manner in which the survey was then conducted, and to offer to undertake on his own part its completion on sounder principles and in a much shorter time. The acrimonious disputings between Mr. Worsley and Dr. Petty, and the complaints of the surveyors who had been employed by Mr. Worsley, which necessarily followed this bold and startling proposition, do not require to be here detailed, as the Council was at length convinced of the wisdom of Dr. Petty's proposals, and his offer being accepted, the remarkable work called "The Down Survey," from "its topographical details being all laid down by admeasurement on maps," or as "the survey laid down," was the result. In briefly detailing some of the arrangements of the Down Survey, and the civille and grosse survey which preceded it, they will occasionally be compared with corresponding arrangements of the Ordnance Survey, and the justice of the following remarks of Lieut.-Colonel Larcom will be fully appreciated: "Generally, in regard to all, nay, to each and every of them, it is not beside the subject to say that there is not one of these precautions which was not found indispensable in the similar work of the Ordnance survey, and it is even more remarkable that clear directions on the same points

were laid down also in the similar instructions prepared by the able director of that work, Colonel, since General, Colby, who, it is needless to say, had never seen or heard of the archives and documents we are now consulting and printing. Many of the instructions of Dr. Petty and Colonel Colby might be printed in parallel columns, so remarkably have the same circumstances produced the same results, from minds very similar in some respects to each other." Sir W. Petty must, indeed, by any historian of the Ordnance survey of Ireland, be considered its progenitor as a great practical work, just as General Roy was its progenitor as a work of science.

Objects.-The object of the Down survey has been clearly stated; namely, as a basis for the distribution of the forfeited lands amongst the adventurers and soldiers, who had either by money or in person contributed towards the expulsion of the old proprietors and the quelling of the rebellion which had led to the forfeitures. The object of the Ordnance survey was to provide a basis for the equitable adjustment of local taxation. The Committee of the House of Commons of 1824 thus reports: "The surface of Ireland consists of about 20,000,000 acres in English measurement, divided into 4 provinces, 32 counties at large, 8 counties of cities, towns, or other independent local jurisdictions, 252 baronies, about 2,400 parishes, and a further civil subdivision, generally known as townlands, but bearing different names in the several counties in Ireland. These

sub-denominations, which may be generally expressed by the word townland, are the ancient and recognised divisions of the country; they form the basis of the Down survey; they have been long used in the apportionment and collection of country and parochial rates. It is obvious, that if a baronial or even a parochial subdivision were alone to be effected, sufficient data would not be furnished for the apportionment of the local taxes; and if, on the other hand, a survey by fields were to be undertaken, as in France and Bavaria, the expense of such a work would be augmented, and its completion postponed. A survey by townlands appears to your committee to be the rational medium between these two extremes; sufficiently close for practical purposes, without aiming at any extreme minuteness of detail." The Down survey, for many years had been unfitted to supply the wants of the public in respect to taxation. In its original state it consisted of 31 folio volumes of survey maps of lands forfeited by the rebellion of 1641. The respective baronies on a small scale, including as well as they could the denominations of lands therein; and upon a more useful and extensive scale, the various denominations contained in the space of the respective parishes, a folio sheet being added to each parish, describing its site, bounds, particular denominations, content, forfeiter's names. Of these volumes, many were nearly and some totally destroyed by a fire, which took place in 1711; and though it was proposed to supply the deficiency thus created by a copy made by General

Vallancey of a set of the maps which Sir W. Petty had copied for his own use from the originals, and which, having been captured by a French privateer when on their passage to England, had been lodged in the King's library at Paris, the Parliament had never ventured to give legality to this copy, which only extended to the baronial maps, even as evidence of boundaries; Mr. Handcocke remarking in his evidence that "General Vallancey's copy is a transcript of the copy of the original baronial maps only, defective of every other likeness or means of information, too minute in many instances to afford the strong contour by which original boundaries, if defaced by time, could be accurately defined; too confined sometimes in space to declare the quantity, or ascertain landmarks, such as castles, churches, &c., &c.; in some instances and very many indeed, erroneous and differing from the originals as to figure, but totally deficient as to every other source of information afforded by the originals. To authenticate them generally and entirely as records, might be dangerous; partially, where the originals have been destroyed, some use may be safely made of them; but, in no instances should they be admitted to serve as proofs on trials of boundaries, unless where none of the originals can be had.” And if, defective, from its now imperfect condition, even as an indicator of territorial boundaries, how much more so must it have been as a guide to the determination of the quantity and value of land, when it is remembered that though a great, nay, a

wonderful work, for the period of its execution, and from the extraordinary fact that it had been completed in about two years, it was not founded upon a scientific basis, nor calculated to represent the altered condition of the country after the lapse of nearly two centuries, nor to meet the exigencies of an improved agricultural and social system.

To supply at least some of that information necessary for an equitable adjustment of local burthens which could no longer be derived from the Down survey, several county maps had been constructed on various scales and of very different degrees of merit, but as such works could not be achieved as parts of one great whole, and therefore be stamped as legal documents of reference by one uniform authority, they were of little or no influence in abating the evil complained of, and in consequence the various assessments were made in the most irregular manner, sometimes from old county books or keys which were arranged when the relative value of the land was quite different, and sometimes in a still more loose and arbitrary manner. In the county of Limerick the whole assessment upon the county was first divided amongst the baronies, proportionably to the number of acres in each, but without reference to the comparative value of the land, and this principle was again followed in apportioning the baronial assessment amongst the townlands, so that the rate levied when estimated in proportion to the actual annual value or return of the land, was ruinously unequal, 100 acres of the most inferior

N