4.06 The National Geographic Magazine 



such a way that there is only a very 

 little amount of deformation. 



It is thus for the first time that dis- 

 tant parts of the earth's surface are 

 represented so that they can be directly 

 compared with one another. One who 

 is familiar with Cuba needs only to lay 

 the French map of this island at the 

 side of the German or French map of 

 China to see at one glance the space 

 which has been overwhelmed in the 

 Russian-Japanese war. A student of 

 the coast lines can now compare the 

 bays of Shantung with those of Cuba, 

 and another can compare the behavior 

 of the rivers in South Abyssinia with 

 those in South China, and a third will 

 be able by the chosen projection to de- 

 termine the exact areas of lands, rivers, 

 basins, lakes, and so on. 



Allthis indicates considerable progress 

 in the practical and theoretical study of 

 different parts of the world, a progress 

 which is not essentially affected by the 

 fact that the maps are not as uniform 

 as was desirable. Uniformity reigns as 

 to scale and nearly as to the limitation 

 of the sheets, each of them embracing 

 a surface lying between 4 degrees of 

 latitude and 6 degrees of longitude, but 

 their arrangementis based upon different 

 parallels and meridians. The English 

 and the French maps use the equator as 

 the initia parallel of the zones of the 

 sheets ; the German sheets, however, 

 use the parallel of north. Still greater 

 variety reigns as to the limiting me- 

 ridians. The English maps use as the 

 initial meridian for the columns of the 

 sheets that of Greenwich ; the German 

 that of 4 east latitude ; the French that 

 of Paris. The French sheets of China 

 do not therefore correspond to the Ger- 

 man sheets of China, and if the Indian 

 map be executed and the French map 

 is extended over larger areas of Asia, as 

 planned, its sheets will overlap the In- 

 dian sheets. Thus much double work 

 will be done and the English and French 

 maps can not be directly joined. The 



same trouble will happen with the En- 

 glish and German maps. We have in 

 the English, French, and German maps 

 not sheets of one map, but sheets of dif- 

 ferent maps, though each of these maps 

 realizes the advantages of a map of the 

 world. 



In execution the different maps are 

 based on the same principles that are 

 proposed for a map of the world and now 

 in general use. Water is represented 

 blue, mountains by brown or gray shad- 

 ing or sketched contour lines ; names 

 and some ways of communication black, 

 on the German and the French map 

 partly red. But there are differences 

 in the adopted signs for towns and in 

 the style of lettering the names, though 

 each separates duly the names of rivers, 

 mountains, and townships by the char- 

 acter of the lettering. Greater differ- 

 ences exist in the measures adopted for 

 height indications ; the German and 

 French maps use the meter, the En- 

 glish the foot. The greatest differences, 

 however, lie in the orthography of 

 names and in the fact that we see on 

 the several series of sheets geographical 

 terms in different languages. In all 

 these respects the maps stand on a na- 

 tional and not on an international basis, 

 and do not show that uniformity which 

 one might wish for a map of the world. 

 But it must be admitted that in many 

 of these respects strong uniformity can be 

 reached. The state of our geographical 

 knowledge does not allow us to represent 

 all countries with the same degree of 

 accuracy ; there can not be perfect uni- 

 formity in their representation ; there 

 will always necessarily be a certain lib- 

 erty of representing unlike phenomena. 

 The orthography used by the civilized 

 nations being different, there can be no 

 uniform orthography of geographical 

 names, and the international orthogra- 

 phy must depend for all those countries 

 which use the Eatin alphabet on a na- 

 tional base. Uniformity can only be 

 reached as to a scale, as to the projection 



