with gazetteer, field observations, and appendices
Surveyed 1949 – 1958 · Drawn from the official sheets
Second printing, corrected. Plate VII withdrawn.
A Note on the Second Printing
The Office is gratified by the reception of the first printing, which sold out within the year — a circumstance unprecedented for a government publication and attributed, by the Office, to the weather.
Errors in the first printing have been corrected. The elevation of the Serrat Range has been revised upward by two metres, the mountains having been remeasured and found, as mountains are, indifferent. The population figures are those of the 1955 census and were true at the time, which is all that can be asked of a population figure.
Plate VII has been withdrawn from circulation by order of the Cartographic Council. The Council thanks the public for its understanding. No further corrections are anticipated.
— T. Ollery, Chief Cartographer Cold Verlay, March 1958
The Plates
Plate I. The Republic — Physical
All rivers of the Republic terminate in Lake Halm. No river leaves it. The lake keeps what it is given.
Plate II. The Republic — Political, showing the Seven Provinces
¹ See Plate VII.
Plate III. Distribution of Silence
Hours of recorded silence per day, 1951 Census of Sound. Shading proportional. The census has not been repeated.
Plates IV (Soils), V (Rainfall), and VI (Languages and Dialects) are not reproduced in this edition, the Office being satisfied that they are remembered.
Plate VII · Askel
This plate has been withdrawn from circulation by order of the Cartographic Council, 3rd March 1953.
The Council thanks the public for its understanding.
Gazetteer
being the principal places of the Republic, with notes on their names
Ashgate (Feldmark; formerly —)
pop. 1,204. Ash + gate. The gate is no longer maintained.
Bellford (Halm)
pop. 3,411. The bells of the old cathedral were carried across at low water in 1841. The name commemorates the crossing. Nothing commemorates the bells.
Cold Verlay (Verlay; capital)
pop. 61,882. verlay: the sound ice makes when it decides. The warm season is considered administrative.
Drowned Combe (Halm)
pop. —. Relocated 1936 for the reservoir. The parish registry is kept, by custom, in the present tense.
Farrenmoor (Feldmark)
pop. 2,976. farren: a field left fallow out of respect. For what, the word does not say.
Halmstead (Halm)
pop. 18,240. The tide gauge on the south quay is the oldest working instrument in the Republic, and the most contradicted. See Appendix C.
Lowmark (Lowmark)
pop. 5,118. The province is named for the town. The town declines to explain.
Miren (Miren)
pop. 312. mir: the place seen from elsewhere. Visible from every province; reachable, by tradition, from none. The road exists. The tradition is observed anyway.
Quillan (Quillan)
pop. 9,730. quil: to wait, specifically for weather.
Serrat Range
From serrat, saw-toothed. The mountains predate the word and will outlast it.
From the Field Books
E. Maren, Surveyor First Class, 1954–1957. Reproduced by permission of his widow.
14 April 1954 · nr. Bellford
River low, ford passable. Breakfast: eggs, the last of the coffee. The theodolite behaves. A good day, by which I mean an unremarkable one.
2 June 1954 · Serrat foothills
Three days of rain. The mules despise me personally. Measured the same ridge twice and got the same answer, which in this weather I take as a kindness.
30 August 1954 · within sight of Miren
The theodolite disagrees with itself. Noted, as instructed, without comment.
17 January 1955 · Cold Verlay
Office work all month. At night you can hear the river deciding.
9 May 1955 · Feldmark
Third month out. I have begun describing the hills to Anna in my head before I measure them. The measuring suffers. The letters improve.
undated · loose leaf, found folded into the back cover
We were not sent to Askel. We were not sent to Askel. The maps we did not make are the accurate ones.
From the Literature
translated from the Veyrish
Lake Halm
Anahl Vesse, 1871–1922
The lake has tides
because it once was asked
to be a sea, and could not,
and did not entirely stop trying.
We are like this.
Something in us rises
for no moon
anyone can point to.
from The Long Field
the national epic, which every citizen of the Republic has read, and no two of them the same
…and the field was long, and the light was long upon it,
and whoever walked there walked a long time
and arrived older, and owed nothing,
and the field did not remember them, and that
was the field’s way of being faithful…
Proverb
untranslatable; the standard rendering is given
The water is also homesick.
Appendix C
Tide observations, Lake Halm, at the south quay, Halmstead. Mean high water above datum, in centimetres.
Year
Spring
Summer
Autumn
Winter
1949
11.2
10.8
11.9
12.4
1950
11.4
10.9
12.1
12.6
1951
11.3
11.0
12.0
12.9
1952
records interrupted
1953
—
1954
—
—
—
13.1 (resumed November)
1955
11.8
11.2
12.4
13.0
1956
11.7
11.3
12.5
13.2
1957
11.9
11.4
12.6
13.3
1958
12.0
11.5
12.7
—
No astronomical body accounts for the observed period. The gauge is inspected annually and found honest.
Atlas of the Republic of Veyre
Prepared by the State Cartographic Office, Cold Verlay