A Pleca for Pioneers. 3
imagines he has an opportunity of calling attention to his own
accuiracy by crying down the su?pposed errors of others.
The best of our maps are impelfect, and the superiority of the
more modern over the older ones is only a matter of degree. We
trust the best maps of to-day will be superseded by better ones by-
and-by, and if we take into consideration our present facilities and
the improved methods at our command, we deserve no more credit
for our comparatively accurate or fine work than do the pioneers for
their equally honest attempts to do the best they could in their
generation. Map making is always a process of development or
evolution, and even yet we may not fully realize the future possibili-
ties of the art of representing topography on paper.