The views of the landscape, the ancient sites and monuments, the objects and curiosities illustrated, are shown here, not as examples of great artistic accomplishments, but as a visual documentation of Ulster in the decade before the Famine. They provide an insight into the working methods and innovations of the Ordnance Survey's project of mapping Ireland. The drawings give glimpses of Ireland which are neither contrived nor commercial. They are an intriguing complement to the more standard views of contemporary topographical art and provide a unique insight into the nineteenth-century Ordnance Survey and its continuing significance for Irish scholarship today.