AND WATER ON THE EARTH. 317 



a general way, away from the land mass ; a relation which is a 

 natural consequence of the concentration of the land in one general 

 mass. The strong lines in Fig i are great circles extending the 

 directions of the three projections. 



But why should there be just three such masses? I can give 

 no definite answer to this question and I am not sure that there is 

 a real answer to it.- In a dissected land area, such as we find on 

 the earth, there must be some number of projections, and the num- 

 ber will depend upon how broadly or how minutely the land is 

 dissected ; and their importance on how much we are impressed by 

 the shape of the projections. Japan and Mexico, for instance, are 

 quite as far from the center of the land hemisphere as the south 

 end of Africa (see map. Fig. i) ; but in their neighborhood the 

 outline of the land maintains its distance from the center and we are 

 not impressed by this distance. 



5. The triangular shape of the continents and oceans is far too 

 rough an approximation to have any real importance. A glance at 

 special maps in a good atlas will show how far from triangular 

 they are. South America is distinctly triangular; North America 

 is not; Eurasia is not. Africa has more the shape of a carpenter's 

 square. The northern part of the Pacific Ocean is bounded nearly 

 by a great circle, that is the boundary is as nearly a straight line 

 as can be drawn on the globe. Here again the maps made on a 

 Mercator projection have suggested the idea of an ocean narrowing 

 towards the north. The boundary of the Indian Ocean on the 

 north is nearly a small circle, not in the least a corner of a triangle. 

 Nor do the North and South Atlantic Oceans at all follow a tri- 

 angular shape. I think the suggestion of a triangular shape for the 

 oceans and continents is too vague to have any meaning or any 

 value and may be abandoned. 



6. Is this of real significance? South America is certainly well 

 separated from North America; and Australia from Asia; but 

 Australia is really a very big island and is only a continent by 

 courtesy. The separation of Africa from Europe is quite insignifi- 

 cant. It has been suggested that the mediterraneans are the indica- 

 tions of a zone of weakness lying along what was once the earth's 



2 See, however, a few pages further on. 



