140 FIFTY YEARS IN WESTERN CANADA

Dalby B. Morkill, wrote the priest in the same connec-
tion: ‘With other land surveyors of British Columbia
(who, of necessity and choice, are explorers also to some
extent), I have a deep appreciation of the splendid work
which you have done in our northern country, and am
glad of this opportunity to say so in an informal way.
Perhaps only a surveyor appreciates to the full what
work and trials are involved in turning out the map of
Northern British Columbia. We are all in your debt,
Sir."

The first of these two parties asked our amateur
geographer what instruments he used: a compass, a
sextant, and what? No, Father Morice did not have
a sextant. Yet he managed to do more accurate
work than a certain surveyor whom he knew in days
of yore, and who must be held responsible for the most
monumental blunder ever perpetrated in that line, an
error which is so very monstrous that it is unthinkable
it should not yet have been corrected in official maps.
Of which more anon (end of next chapter).

As to his instruments, our friend had only a chro-
nometer watch, a telemeter, a compass and a mountain
barometer, together with a sounding-line—for it must
not be forgotten that, in addition to the usual geograph-
ical data furnished by maps, those of Father Morice
give the depth, after actual and, at times, dangerous
soundings, of many points of the lakes he explored.

To survey the coasts of a lake or the course of a
river, he proceeded, compass in hand, from point to
point, from turn to turn, and carefully noted on paper
the readings of his instrument. In such cases the
accuracy of the work depends more on the care with

5 To Father Morice, Stewart, B.C., 31 May, 1929. That Mr.

Morkill, as well as Mr. Swannell, is personally a perfect stranger to Father
Morice.

Se