i88 THE NEW WORLD OF SCIENCE 



high development of the art of model making must have meant 

 to the Allied armies. 



One who watched the large number of models under con- 

 struction at the Invalides, or saw them piled high in' their 

 corrugated pasteboard box containers in the store rooms, or 

 observed the many camions loaded with the large wooden cases 

 in which they were shipped to the front, gained an impressive 

 idea of the magnitude of this geographic contribution to the 

 war. The impression was greatly heightened when he learned 

 that the Invalides contained only one of the several establish- 

 ments in Paris devoted to this important work, and that at 

 various headquarters along the front were still other labora- 

 tories busy at the task of making relief models. 



While Paris was indeed the center of the geographic work 

 of the French Armies, the visitor to army headquarters at the 

 front also received a vivid conception of the role played by 

 certain phases of geography in the military operations. It was, 

 for example, a surprise to note the excellence of the equipment 

 for drawing, engraving, and printing maps which one found 

 only a few miles back of the fighting zone; and a matter of 

 the greatest interest to observe the methods by which airplane 

 observations and photographs, reports of scouts and raiding 

 parties, data captured from prisoners and secured by spies, 

 were systematically being incorporated in new maps of con- 

 stantly increasing accuracy and detail. It was a surprise, too, 

 to see the size and equipment of the relief model laboratories 

 at certain headquarters, and to learn the practical military uses 

 to which these representations of the earth's surface were put. 

 And it Was during the terrific artillery duel which accompanied 

 the second battle of the Marne that a French major explained 

 to me a new geographical instrument he was perfecting to 

 improve the method of making contour maps of enemy terri- 

 tory from airplane observations. In the study of air currents 

 and in weather forecasting the French meteorological service 

 was likewise active along the entire battle front. 



The French officer devotes a part of his training period to 



