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Articles

1979: Vol. LVI, No. 2

Back to Cook — The Role of the Hydrographer in Delineating Topography and Culture

Submitted
August 7, 2015
Published
2015-07-10

Abstract

The concepts for this paper were formulated during the period April 1975 to March 1976 when I was a member of the Chart Presentation Steering Committee of the Canadian Hydrographic Service (CHS). This Committee, under the chairmanship of the late E.M. Walsh, was charged with the task of developing a new presentation for Canadian charts to meet the needs of metric conversion and bilingualism. A third requirement was to ensure that where practicable the presentation would agree with the international chart specifications then under development through the North Sea International Chart Commission (NSICC). The initial work of the Committee focussed on methods of showing bathymetry and chart scheming as described in papers given in 1976 [1] [2], Subsequently a decision in principle was reached on the basic concepts to be followed in showing topography and culture on Canadian charts. This paper reviews the historical evolution of how land features have been shown; comments on the inadequacies of the current presentation, then explores the new philosophy and compares it with that developed by the NSICC.