THE COLOURS QUESTION: A BAFFLING FRONTIER PROBLEM

Abstract

“Checquy,undy; vert, azure, gules, etc., ad lib.; a medley of features couchant in congruence; motto: Verity, Clarity, Sufficiency.” Arms worthily won (and unaccountably secreted) by the Worshipful Company of Map-makers. … Their craft like many another has been swept into the headlong surge of science and the applied arts, and her crew might almost be forgiven if they conspired to meet the menace of voces populi with shrugged shoulders and plugged ears, and eyes turned astern to the pleasant bay where their forefathers rode at anchor and plied brush and crowquill. Yet they, too, had their problems and perplexities, those early craftsmen, and one at least has withstood the solvent stress of science and stands to-day where it stood when a man first stumbled upon it.