What they said

Methinks a Prince should have… a draught of his country and dominions, to see how the ground lies in the several parts of them, which highest, which lowest… How the rivers flow, and why, how the mountains lie, how heaths, and how the marches. Such a map or survey would be useful both in time of war and peace and many good observations might be made Thomas Burnet, ‘The Sacred Theory of the Earth’ (1684) The trigonometrical operation, so successfully begun, should certainly be continued, and gradually extended over the whole island. Compared with the greatness of the object, the annual expense to the public would be a mere trifle William Roy, in ‘Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London’ (1790)