CHAPTER X. 



MAP BEADING AND SKETCHING. 



Section 1. Military map reading. 



When yon pick up a map, the first question is, Where is the 

 north? This can usually be told by an arrow (see fig. 1, p. 

 259) which will be found in one of the corners of the map, 

 and which points to the true north — the north of the north 

 star. 



On some maps no arrow is to be found. The chances are a 

 hundred to one that the north is at the top of the map, as it 

 is on almost all printed maps. But you can only assure your- 

 self of that fact by checking the map with the ground it 

 represents. For instance, if you ascertain that the city of 

 Philadelphia is due east of the city of Columbus, then the 

 Philadelphia-Columbus line on the map is a due east-and- 

 west line, and establishes at once all the other map direc- 

 tions. 



Now, the map represents the ground as nearly as it can be 

 represented on a flat piece of paper. If you are standing up, 

 facing the north, your right hand will be in the east, your left 

 in the west, and your back to the south. It is the same with a 

 map ; if you look across it in the direction of the arrow — that 

 is, toward its north — your right hand will be toward what is 

 east on the map ; your left hand to the west ; the south will be 

 at the bottom of the map. 



There is another kind of an arrow that sometimes appears 

 on a map. It is like the one in figure 2, page 259, and points 

 not to the true north but to the magnetic north, which is the 

 north of the compass. Though the compass needle, and there- 

 fore the arrow that represents it on the map, does not poini 



