m HOW BEST TO MODEL THE EARTH 67 



and deceptive, and that they ought to be abolished. Posi- 

 tions seen on such a globe can be, and are, easily transferred 

 to the apparently concave sky; while many problems 

 relating to the motions of the earth and the planets are 

 clearly illustrated and explained by their use. A concave 

 surface suspended from the ceiling of a schoolroom would, 

 no doubt, show more accurately the position of the heavenly 

 bodies, but would probably not be so generally useful as 

 the unnatural convex globe. 



The representation of the earth's surface on the inside 

 of a sphere has been tried on a considerable scale by 

 Wyld's globe in Leicester Square, and was found to be 

 extremely interesting and instructive. Before seeing it I 

 was prejudiced against it as being quite opposed to 

 nature ; but all my objections vanished when I entered 

 the building and beheld the beautiful map-panorama from 

 the central gallery. I visited it several times, and I never 

 met with any one who was not delighted with it, or who 

 did not find it most useful in correcting the erroneous 

 views produced by the usual maps and atlases. It 

 remained for twelve years one of the most instructive ex- 

 hibitions in London, when it was removed owing to the 

 lease of the ground having expired. This globe was sixty 

 feet in diameter, and it showed how grand would be the 

 effect of one many times larger and admitting of greater 

 detail, while variety would be obtained by the view at 

 dillerent distances and under various kinds of illumina- 

 tion. 



One other consideration may be adduced in this con- 

 nection, which is, that even the outer surface of a huge 

 globe has its own sources of error and misconception. It 

 would perpetuate the idea of the North -pole being up and 

 the South-pole down, of the surface of the earth being not 

 only convex but sloping, while for the whole southern 

 hemisphere we should have to look upwards to see the 

 surface, which we could never do in reality unless we were 

 far below that surface. Again, we all know how the sea- 

 horizon seen from an elevation, and especially from a 

 balloon, appears not convex but concave. A convex globe, 



