The earliest surveys were not laid down as maps but consisted of catalogues of property which are called "terriers;" of these the Domesday Book is the earliest extant. Had the art of surveying been properly understood at the time of the Norman conquest there would probably have been a Saxon cadastre along with the Domesday Book, which was ordered by William the Conquerer in the year 1085. "After this had the king a very large meeting, and a very deep consultation with his council about this land, how it was occupied, and by what sort of men. Then sent he his men all over England, into each shire, commissioning them to find out 'how many hundreds of hides were in the shire; what land the king himself had, and what stock upon the land, or what dues he ought to have by the year from the shire.' Also he commissioned them to record in writing, 'How much land his archbishops had, and his diocesan bishops, and his abbots, and his earls; and though I may be prolix and tedious, what and how much each man had, who was the occupier of land in England, either in money or in stock, and how much money it was worth.' So very narrowly indeed did he commission them to trace it out, that there was not a single hide nor a yard of land (the fourth part of an acre), nay, moreover, (it is shameful to tell, though he thought it no shame to do it) not even an ox, a cow, or a swine was there left, that was not set down in his writ, and all the recorded particulars were afterwards brought to him."--_Saxon Chronicle, by Ingram_. The publication of the Domesday Book was ordered first by George III. in 1767, and completed in 1783. After the discovery of the art of photozincography it was reproduced "in facsimile" in 1864-5, under the direction of Lieut.-Gen'l. Sir Henry James, then director of the Ordnance Survey. Little change (in the art of mensuration or surveying) seems to have been made until the early part of the 17th century when simple boundary line maps accompanied the terriers of the surveys made in Ireland in 1634, by order of Lord Stafford, then viceroy. Great improvements were introduced about that time in Sweden by Gustavus Adolphus, which must have become known to Cromwell, for in 1654, the "Down Survey," as it was called, comprised maps of the townlands, and baronies over two-thirds of the surface of Ireland, that is, comprehending about 20,000,000 of English acres. It may not be uninteresting or irrelevant to bestow a few remarks upon the development and methods of surveying in the seventeenth century, many of which have descended with little modification to the present day.