Plan for a Map of the World 



407 



of each sheet on its own plane, and as to 

 the adopted geographical units. As to 

 these three points, the first is quite and 

 the second nearly uniformly treated in 

 our maps; differences only exist as to the 

 third, and here I believe that the Con- 

 gress could advance future work very 

 much by a resolution in favor of a cer- 

 tain, initial meridian and of the geo- 

 graphical measures to be used on a map 

 of the world. This resolution should, 

 in my opinion, be in favor of the initial 

 meridian of Greenwich and of the metric 

 system, the latter being now introduced 

 in many different countries of the world, 

 and being technically adopted both in 

 the United States and in Great Britain. 

 But an International Geographical 

 Congress held in America could go still 

 further. There are now more than 40 

 millions of kilometers, approximately a 

 fourth part of the surface of the land, 

 in process of being represented on maps 

 on the same scale of 1 : 1,000,000, with 

 important common features, and this 

 quarter of the land belongs for the most 

 part to the Old World, although a few 

 American sheets have been executed by 

 France. It would be a very important 

 result of the Congress if it could induce 

 the United States to do for America what 

 Great Britain is doing for Africa — i. e. , 

 to issue a uniform map for both conti- 

 nents of America. The want of a gen- 

 eral map on a scale of 1 : 1,000,000 is 

 felt very much not only for South 

 America, on which continent only a 

 few states, as Argentina, have maps 011 

 such a scale and a still larger one, but 

 also for Canada, for Mexico, and the 

 United States. Wonderful work has 

 been done in the United States by to- 

 pographers ; excellent maps are edited 

 by the Coast Survey and the Geological 

 Survey. The coasts are prepared on a 

 scale of 1 : 80,000, the interior on the 

 scale of 1 : 62,500, 1 : 125,000, and in 

 the Far West of 1 : 250,000 ; but there 

 is such a want of general maps that a 

 visitor to the United States is much at 

 a loss what map to take as a companion. 



I studied this question seriously when 

 fitting myself out for the excursions of 

 the Congress, and, finally, I found that 

 the best general maps of the United 

 States are made in Germany, and I chose 

 the maps of the new Stieler Atlas as 

 companions ; those of the previous edi- 

 tion had already accompanied me to the 

 United States in 1897 and had proved 

 very satisfactory. They contain as 

 much as the scale can afford. This is 

 1 : 3,700,000. But this scale is far from 

 being sufficient for containing such de- 

 tails as a traveler wishes to know, and it 

 is far too little to give the impression of 

 the grandeur of the country. The scale 

 of 1 : 1,000,000 would be as necessary 

 for a general map of the United States 

 as it is for general maps of European 

 countries. The atlases of Vivende Saint 

 Mirtin, of Andree, of Debes, of Sohr- 

 Berghaus, have adopted uniformly that 

 scale for their maps of central Europe 

 and France, and in those atlases we 

 already find the material for a map of 

 large parts of Europe on the scale of 

 1 : 1,000,000. 



A map of America on the scale of 1 : 

 1,000,000 would at the same time be 

 the third part of a general map of the 

 world if it were based on the same gen- 

 eral plan which is followed by the En- 

 glish, French, and German maps. The 

 system inaugurated by the French map 

 to limit the sheets by parallels of 4 to 

 4 and by meridians of 6° to 6° has 

 been adopted by the other countries. 

 The same system would be appropriate 

 also for an American map, if at the 

 same time it followed the arrangement 

 of the English map by taking the equator 

 and the meridian of Greenwich as ini- 

 tial dividing lines of the sheets. As to 

 indication of heights, I would propose 

 the adoption of the meter, already used 

 in the French and German map. The 

 latter is a model solution of the impor- 

 tant question of geographical measures ; 

 it has adopted the Greenwich meridian 

 and the meter. As to the style of ex- 

 ecution of the sheets for the United 



