Book reviews: Atlas of Australian resources

Summary

L. Bridel reviews five sheets from the Atlas of Australian Resources, prepared and published by the Department of National Development at 1:6,000,000 and listed as Sydney, 1959. He praises the soft colours and efforts to make complex information legible, while criticizing some tonal gradations. He considers the dense health-service and maritime-traffic maps justified by the atlas’s encyclopedic ambitions. The predominant land-use map departs from International Geographical Union recommendations but includes detailed livestock information and isohyets, which he regards as essential to Australia’s economy. Bridel commends the atlas’s care and precision, values it for territorial planning and geography teaching, and hopes for a comparable Swiss work.