CHAPTER III 



HOW BEST TO MODEL THE EARTH 



M. ELISEE RECLUS, the well-known geographer, in a 

 pamphlet printed at Brussels, 1 has elaborated a startling 

 and even sensational proposal for the construction of a huge 

 globe, on a scale of one hundred thousandth the actual size 

 of our earth. This is only about one-third smaller than 

 the maps of our own one-inch Ordnance Survey ; and the 

 magnitude of the work will be appreciated when it is stated 

 that the structure will be 418 feet in diameter, so that 

 the London Monument, if erected inside it, would not 

 reach to its centre, while even the top of the cross of St. 

 Paul's Cathedral would fall short of its highest point by 

 fourteen feet. This enormous size is considered to be 

 necessary in order to allow of the surface being modelled 

 with minute accuracy and in true proportions, so as to 

 show mountains and valleys, plateaux and lowlands, in 

 their actual relations to the earth's magnitude. Even on 

 this large scale the Himalayas would be onlyabout three and 

 a half inches high, Mont Blanc, about two inches, the Gram- 

 ' pians half an inch, while Hampstead and Highgate would 

 be about one-sixteenth of an inch above the valley of the 

 Thames. It may be thought that these small elevations 

 would be quite imperceptible on the vast extent of a globe 



1 Elisee Reclus, Projet de Construction d'un Globe Terrestre a Vechelle 

 du Centmillieme. Edition de la Societe nouvelle. 1895. 



More recently (1898) a paper on the same subject was read 

 before our Royal Geographical Society, in which the same eminent 

 geographer explained the advantages of his plan, even if the globe 

 were constructed on a smaller scale than he first proposed. 



