274 



NA TURE 



\yan. 2 1, 1886 



popular they seem to be. They are enough to ruin the 

 taste of pupils. As examples of what school-maps should 

 be, those of the district of Graz, of the Canton of Zurich, 

 of Switzerland, by Ziegler ; of the Alpine countries, by 

 von Haardt, and the same region by Randegger, may be 

 taken as examples in various grades, from the elementary 

 stage upwards. Only the best work should be placed 

 befoi-e the pupil from the beginning. There is certainly 

 one good English specimen, — a map of the district around 

 Bradford, by a Bradford teacher, for local geography. 

 The scale is two inches to a mile ; there is no overcrowd- 

 ing, and the physical features are bold, careful, accurate, 

 and tasteful, after the best manner of hill-shading. These 

 ought to be the characteristics of all school-maps, which 

 ought to be a picture that the eye of the pupil can at 

 once imderstand. The elementary principles of hill- 

 shading are easily learned — a few hours' teaching would 

 do ; without it, how can the pupil be expected to read 

 his map.? It is almost better to have no names on ele- 

 mentary maps ; the children should be taught to look for 

 things, not words ; the teacher ought to be able to give 

 all the names needed. 



Of course, school-maps, especially for the elementary 

 stages, should not be crowded with names and symbols, 

 while at the same time they should be of a character that 

 will lead up to the understanding of the best staff-maps. 

 It is evident from the detailed and beautiful maps from 

 Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, that geography is 

 carried to a much higher stage in these countries than in 

 England. Our maps seem mainly intended to answer 

 the common English conception of geography, that of 

 mere memory-work ; the maps without names are " test- 

 maps " to te.st the memory of the pupils, not physical 

 maps, on which no names should be. Now that local 

 geography is made the starting-point in elementary 

 schools, we want a thoroughly good series of large 

 county maps, with few names, but with the physical 

 features, not in too great detail, but executed with as 

 much care and precision as on a staff map. Local maps 

 ought to be done by teachers themselves, as in the case of 

 the Bradford map referred to. There are several e.x- 

 hibits by London Board-school teachers, creditable to 

 their zeal and industry, but indicative of their want of 

 enlightenment more than of anything else. 



One of the best means to teach the pupii to understand 

 a map is to train him to draw maps for himself, either 

 from a model, or, better still, from nature. This is done, 

 we are glad to say, in several schools in this country, 

 notably in Gordon's College, .'\berdeen ; several speci- 

 mens of the work thus done in the latter school are 

 shown in the Exhibition. The inap must always be the 

 mainstay both of the geographer, of the teacher, and of 

 the pupil, and therefore every means should be taken to 

 train the eye and the understanding to read it as if it were 

 a book. If this Exhibition enlightens our teachers as to 

 the value and characteristics of really good maps, it will 

 have accomplished much. 



One of the most striking features of the E.xhibition is 

 the number of reliefs of various kinds, from the large 

 model down to the relief-atlas. The finest relief is with- 

 out doubt that of the Monte Rosa group from Zurich. 

 Here the vertical and horizontal scales are the same ; the 

 region embraced is comparatively small, and the scale 

 large — i : 150,000. The relief itself is by Prof Imfeld, 

 an eminent Swiss engineer, while the colouring, accord- 

 ing to' nature, is, we believe, by Prof Heim, the geologist. 

 For teaching-purposes, for physical geography, its value 

 is great ; unfortunately its price is a bar to its general 

 use. The reliefs of a glacier and of a volcanic island are, 

 however, cheap enough, and should be in every school. 

 The model, by Mr. Jordan, showing the contours of the 

 ocean bed around our shores, is also most instructive, 

 though the exaggeration is great — 28 times. It has been 

 constructed for the Science and Art Department. Of re- 



lief-maps the finest are no doubt the three sections of the 

 Central and Eastern Alps, by Col. Cherubini, in which 

 the vertical scale is only exaggerated twice that of the 

 horizontal. Mdlle. Kleinhanss relief-maps of Europe and 

 France are also fine specimens of such work. There are 

 also German, Italian, and English relief-maps of small 

 size, in which the vertical scale is enormously exaggerated, 

 and which therefore, if used at all, must be used with 

 great caution. Good reliefs are in themselves of great 

 service in giving the pupils a vivid notion of the appear- 

 ance of a region ; but one of their chief uses, in our esti- 

 mation, is in enabhng the pupil to understand the meaning 

 of a map. Therefore besides every relief there ought to 

 be a map of the same region, the one being used to inter- 

 pret the other. There are several so-called ideal reliefs 

 in the collection, some of them by English Board-school 

 teachers, in which every salient feature on the earth's 

 surface is brought together within an area of a few inches. 

 Such productions ought to be discouraged. Much better 

 to make reliefs of real landscapes, say of the Isle of 

 Wight, or of a limited area around a school ; such, for 

 example, as that of the region around Rochester or Kent, 

 by a master in one of the schools there. 



One of the most novel features in the E.xhibition is the 

 collection of geographical pictures. There are several 

 series of them, the finest, no doubt, being that published 

 by Holzel, of Vienna, which, in about thirty wall-pictures, 

 shows some of the most characteristic and typical land- 

 scapes in various parts of the world. Such pictures add 

 greatly to the living interest, as well as to the instruction, 

 of a lesson in geography. They must above all things be 

 accurate, and therefore large photographs are to be pre- 

 ferred as models to pictures from a purely artistic stand- 

 point. Indeed, photographs themselves, on a large scale, 

 make excellent pictures for geographical purposes, such 

 as those of the Yosemit^ Valley in the Exhibition, or the 

 well-known photographs of the Alps by Mr. Uonkin. 

 Equally serviceable is the series of twelve typical life-size 

 heads of races, edited by Prof KirchhofI', of Halle, and 

 sold at a very cheap rate. There are also several pictures 

 of groups of peoples in their native surroundings, some 

 of which are very good. 



The Exhibition also contains a considerable collection 

 of globes, including slate globes of various sizes, which 

 we think can be made of great service in the hands of a 

 good teacher. The telluria are mostly of the well-known 

 kind — complicated, and easily put out of order. The 

 simpler such apparatus are, the better ; children are apt 

 to contract misleading and erroneous ideas from such 

 things — ideas difficult to eradicate. One of the simplest 

 is exhibited by Stanford : a glass globe with a candle for 

 the sun, with only the earth and moon at the end of the 

 arm. Some means should always be taken to counteract 

 the misleading impressions as to scale conveyed by such 

 instruments ; and for this purpose an idea has been 

 borrowed from the arrangement in the jermyn Street 

 Museum, showing the relative sizes and distances of the 

 sun and planets. A yellow disk, about 6 inches in dia- 

 meter, is fixed on the wall of one of the rooms, to repre- 

 sent the sun ; and 56 feet away are two pellets of wax, 

 I A inch apart — one, 1/20 of an inch in diameter, to repre- 

 sent the earth ; and the other, 1/60 of an inch, to repre- 

 sent the moon The whole arrangement is intended to 

 show what would be the relative sizes of sun, earth, and 

 moon, if these were reduced to a scale commensurate 

 with a distance of 56 feet. 



Another interesting e.xhibit is a section of the con- 

 trivance devised by Prof G. H. Darwin, on which he 

 read a paper to the Royal Society some years ago, in- 

 tended to give a truer representation of the globe than 

 an ordinary projection. It consists of a figure formed of 

 twenty hexagons and twelve pentagons, the projection on 

 which is but very slightly distorted. Of much historical 

 and antiquarian interest are the two large Mollineux 



