PROCEEDINGS OF THE OHIO ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 305 



A Nezv World Map. Federal geological organizations in 

 the various countries have made it possible to consummate a 

 proposal of the geographers. At a meeting of the Fifth Inter- 

 national Geographical Congress at Bern, in 1891, a movement 

 was initiated for the production of a standardized world map, 

 on a scale of one to one million, i. e., about 15.78 statute miles 

 to the inch. This was an optomistic proposal, the realization 

 of which would require the cooperative interest of the several 

 governments which are making maps of their territory. Slowly 

 the idea took root ; France, Germany, and England began to 

 publish sheets on this scale. Following the Eighth Geographical 

 Congress, which met in this country in 1904, our government 

 through the Topographic Branch of the Geological Survey, com- 

 menced the issue of such sheets. 



Uniformity in other respects than scale was insured by an 

 agreement made at the Ninth Congress, which assembled in 1908 

 at Geneva, to use the polyconic projection, to reckon longitude 

 from Greenwich, to have each sheet cover 4° of latitude and 6° 

 of longitude, and to express altitude in intervals of 200 meters, 

 though variations may be used in very fiat and very mountainous 

 regions. 



This is a noteworthy example of international cooperation 

 in science. Having a standard map of definite scale and pro- 

 jection, all the continents may be represented in their relative 

 size ; and from such standard maps larger or smaller ones may 

 be drawn, giving a true representation, because the land areas 

 will be shown in the same proportion. 



Climate of the Geologic Past. Ecology teaches us today's 

 correlation between organisms and their environment. We ex- 

 pect the most successful functioning of life forms only in a suit- 

 able combination of light, heat, moisture, food, and neighbors, 

 a favorable habitat. In a dim way, students long ago recog- 

 nized in the fossil record anomalies when referred to the present 

 physical conditions of the fossil's geographical location. It was 

 inferred, therefore, that in the progress of geologic time there 

 have come changes in climate, or at least in the distribution of 

 mean annual temperature, in particular parts of the earth's sur- 



