Bursting at the seams with physical expansion, Canada's cities are having their major survey control systems brought up-to-date with the micro-accuracy of modern geodesy. After two decades of rapid national growth, the bulging urban centers of commerce across the country have spread outwards at a rate undreamed of by former planners and today's super land values mean that every vital inch of property counts. Keeping ahead of the problem, geodesists and topographers of the federal Surveys and Mapping Branch are busy on a crash program to extend in detail the extremely accurate national control grid around the areas of rapid growth so that provincial, municipal and private organizations have nearby fixed points of positions to control all property divisions and the multitudinous works of modern life. Using geodimeters (that measure distances by timing a light-ray travelling between two points) and tellurometers (which measure distances with microwaves) combined with precision theodolities that can measure angles to within one fifth of a second of arc, the surveyors first lay out a major framework of marked positions in a series of approximately seven-mile-sided triangles. After an inner framework is established with points at about one mile intervals and the positions marked with bronze tablets atop concrete pillars embedded in the ground, the survey data is handed over to the regional and local authorities. Cities which have had their control updated recently are: Halifax-Dartmouth, Montreal, Ottawa, North Bay, Toronto, Hamilton, Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Medicine Hat, Lethbridge, Calgary and Edmonton. In future, with exact control points positioned to within an inch of each other around Canada's bustling cities, the waves of growth will flow smoothly, assisting the tide of national progress to rise to its highest point.