44 2 The National Geographic Magazine 



chart should cause the following words to be impressed on the face thereof : 



" Entered according to the act of Congress, the — day of , 18 — , by A. B., 



of the State of . " This in addition to the publication in the newspaper as 



before. By the act of February 3, 1831, the notice was changed to read : " En- 

 tered according to act of Congress in the year — , by A. B., in the clerk's office 



of the District Court of . " 



When the Librarian of Congress assumed control of the cop} r right affairs by 

 virtue of the act of July 8, 1870, the notice was changed to : " Entered according 



to act of Congress, in the year , by A. B., in the office of the Librarian of 



Congress, at Washington." The latter version was reenacted in the revision of 

 the copyright laws in 1873 (December 1), but by the act of June 18, 1874, it was 

 made optional as to whether one used that notice or ' ' Copyright, 18 — , by A. B, " 

 the latter being the briefest and best, covering all essentials. At the present time 

 the applicant has the choice of the two forms, though the cumbrous old methods 

 are nearly obsolete and the shorter one has come into almost universal use. The 

 trouble in many cases is that either the date or the name of the proprietor of the 

 copyright is omitted. 



It will be seen that there are three things necessary in the notice : ( 1 ) State- 

 ment of copyright ; (2) year in which printed title was deposited; (3) name of 

 the proprietor of the copyright. To emphasize the necessity of giving proper 

 attention to the notice it will be well to here cite the decision in the case of King 

 vs. Force, in which the court held that " the omission to have the date of deposit- 

 ing the title of the map engraved thereon is fatal to the plaintiff's title to a copy- 

 right (King vs. Force, 2 Cranch, C. C, 208). That was as early as 1820. Error 

 in the mention of the date in the copyright notice may be attended by serious 

 consequences or it ms.y be practically immaterial. In the case of Callahan vs. 

 Myers the court said : " The title having been deposited in 1867 it is immaterial 

 as to third persons that the notice printed in the work states that the copyright 

 was entered in 1866." Here the error would result simply in shortening the 

 period of copyright protection one year, which in most cases would not be con- 

 sidered a matter of consequence. But if the erro.r was the other way, that is, if 

 the year mentioned in the copyright notice was subsequent to the } r ear of copy- 

 right entry, the consequences would be most serious, for in a case where the title 

 page of a book was deposited in 1846 and the notice of the entry as printed in 

 the copies of the book stated the entty to have been made in 1847, tne court held 

 that the error, whether arising from mistake or not, was fatal (Baker vs. Taylor, 

 2 Blatch., 82). 



The Romans contributed nothing to the development of the 

 scientific methods of the Greeks, and did not apply astronomy to 

 the purposes of cartography. They valued maps according to their 

 practical utility as implements of political administration ; and 

 they accordingly attached most importance to the route-map, from 

 which they could learn the roads and the distances. — Encyclopedia 

 Britannica. 



