Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 February 2010
The aim of this paper is to give a clear statement, and, I hope, a reasonably clear proof, of a theorem of Thorn, which occurs in his important and difficult paper “Ensembles et morphismes stratifiés” [10]. The theorem to which I refer is Théorème 1.D.1 of [10]. “Tout espace stratifié compact admet une présentation associée aux applications kYX données”. At least, I think that the theorem herein described is equivalent to the above, but I could not swear to it. The main difficulty is that, despite strenuous efforts on my part, I have always found it easier to rig up my own system of definitions than to work within the framework suggested by Thorn. However, the two accounts clearly say the same sort of thing. In particular, §1 of the present paper is closely related to, and heavily influenced by, the material on page 250 of [10].