Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/88



may be surmised that the chest mentioned in Chapter XIII. of the 'Down Survey' is the same as that described by Mr. Hardinge, which, on being opened by him in a room where it was discovered at Dublin in 1837, was found to contain townlands maps of some of the surveys on two scales: a reduced scale as described in the 'Brief Account,' and a larger scale, from which apparently the official maps had been reduced, thereby affording important evidence for Mr. Hardinge' s contention that there were two sets of townland maps—the first set on a large scale, and the second set or official maps on a reduced scale. The latter were undoubtedly those officially deposited. The maps so deposited were, however, not uniform in scale, but were made on a variety of scales in order to accommodate the baronies and parishes, which naturally varied in size, to a sheet of 'royal' paper of uniform dimensions; the effect of which was to reduce the original barony maps to scales varying from 80 to 640 perches to the square inch, and the original parish maps to scales varying from 60 to 140 perches to the square inch. These official maps were greatly injured in the fire of 1711, which destroyed a large portion of the Government offices in Dublin. What became of the original maps is doubtful. A few of them were found by Mr. Hardinge in 1837 in the old press in the ancient Treasury buildings in Dublin, with a few of the reduced official and parish maps, but the remainder have been lost. Their discovery, as pointed out by Mr. Hardinge, would be of special interest, owing to the partial destruction of the official maps. 'A set of barony maps,' says Mr. Hardinge, 'preserved in La Bibliothèque Impériale at Paris, have by many been supposed to be the originals. The Irish Parliament and the Government were led into this mistake when Colonel Vallancey, R.E., was engaged, at a heavy cost, in 1791, to make