Page:Petty 1851 The Down Survey.djvu/361

 time referred to or published; and as there is scarcely any more fertile source of confusion than uncertainty of nomenclature, it may be hoped that, as the boundaries of the Ordnance Survey are recognised by several Acts of Parliament, the names now engraved on the authorized maps of that Survey may also become generally adopted in all legal and authentic papers.

To return, however, to the Strafford survey of Tipperary. On receiving the maps and books, Dr. Petty, with characteristic caution, weighed the expediency of availing himself of them, or discarding them altogether. There will be little doubt among persons conversant with such subjects that it would have been far easier and more satisfactory to have surveyed the lands anew than endeavour to amend and make the old documents available. Such appears to have been Mr. Worsley's conviction when the case was his own. Dr. Petty, however, ultimately resolved to make use of them, and appears to have adopted a very judicious course for testing and amending what was sent to him. As the process was different from his ordinary mode of proceeding, he employed a more highly qualified person, and nothing can be more clear than his instructions to Dr. Raggett. The comparison of the old mearings, with those ascertained by the civil survey and with the ground itself; adding the buildings and detail, more especially as to profitable and unprofitable land; stating any deterioration or difference which had occurred since the original survey was made, and finally, delineating the new work on the back of the old plans, so that what was old and what was new, and the differences between them, might be easily seen and compared; on the review of which, the Doctor estimates his gain, by the use of the old work, at only £100. The maps now remaining are not the original Strafford maps amended, but the fair copies made from them at the time. They bear the signature, Patrick Raggett, and are in tolerable preservation, so far as they escaped the fire of 1711.

chapter exhibits a beginning of the troubles which thenceforward beset Dr. Petty in the distribution of the lands, an operation which, as before adverted to, would, so far as he was personally concerned, have been far more satisfactorily performed by a separate authority from that charged with the survey. Still there can be no doubt Dr. Petty was eminently qualified for both, and it may be doubted if any other machinery could so easily have been framed.

While the survey was proceeding, the committee of officers appointed in the previous December (pp. 40, 41) was also endeavouring to ascertain the debt and credit, i. e. the sums due to the army, and the extent of land which was available for their satisfaction; and it appeared that, according to the extent estimated by the civil survey, the moiety of the ten