284 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Geographic Society has been fortunate 

 in having the enthusiatic cooperation and 

 active professional services of the fore- 

 most flag expert of the United States 

 Government and probably the leading au- 

 thority in the world on flag usages among 

 maritime nations — Lieut. Commander 

 Byron McCandless, of the United States 

 Navy. 



Lieut. Commander McCandless was the 

 flag officer of the American fleet at Vera 

 Cruz in 1913, and in the performance of 

 his duties there he found that the signal 

 officers and enlisted men were handi- 

 capped in their work by the non-existence 

 of a flag book. Being far removed from 

 a printing establishment, the ingenious 

 officer met the condition by chiseling flag 

 plates from leaden sheets and printing 

 in color a book of flags with a hand- 

 press installed on the flagship. This 

 unique publication attracted wide atten- 

 tion among naval officers, and the de- 

 mand for copies of the work became so 

 great that the improvised flag plates, 

 made of soft metal, soon wore away. 



Lieut. Commander McCandless was in- 

 duced by the National Geographic Society 

 to undertake, with the consent of the Sec- 

 retary of the Navy, the assembling of the 

 flags of the world for this issue of the 

 Geographic. In view of the value of 

 this flag material to the government, the 

 Society has donated 5,000 copies of the 

 Flag Number to the United States Navy 

 and 5,000 copies to the Army. 



In addition to the expert services of 

 Lieut. Commander McCandless, the Ed- 

 itor has had the assistance of John Oliver 

 La Gorce, the Associate Editor ; of Wil- 

 liam Joseph Showalter, Ralph A. Graves, 

 Franklin L. Fisher, and other members 

 of the editorial staff in the months of 

 research work necessary to secure the 

 historically accurate data descriptive of 

 the more than 1,200 flags in colors and 

 in black and white. Thus, through such 

 concerted effort, it is possible to present 

 in this issue the most complete and au- 

 thoritative work on flags ever published. 



The engraving of the coats-of-arms and 

 devices appearing on many of the ban- 

 ners and the preparation of all the color 

 plates in their accurate proportions, as 

 well as the notable achievement in rich 



color printing, have been accomplished 

 through the mechanical efficiency and ar- 

 tistic cooperation of the Beck Engraving 

 Company of Philadelphia. In the proc- 

 esses of color printing it was necessary 

 to operate the presses in daylight only, 

 in order that the tints and shades might 

 be kept true for each of the 23,000,000 

 pages (32 pages of color in each of more 

 than 700,000 copies of this issue of the 

 magazine). 



The Flag Number, like all the other is- 

 sues since the founding of the magazine 

 twenty-nine years ago, owes its attractive 

 typographical appearance to Messrs. Judd 

 & Detweiler, Inc., of Washington, D. C. 



THE WORK OF PRINTING 



Every one will readily appreciate that 

 the cost of our flag number far exceeds 

 the moderate price at which it is dis- 

 tributed to members of the Society (one- 

 twelfth of the annual membership fee), 

 a sum not sufficient to cover the bare cost 

 of the paper, engraving, and printing. 

 This deficit is made good from the So- 

 ciety's educational fund, but for addi- 

 tional copies the price will necessarily be 

 50 cents each. 



So vast has grown the membership of 

 the National Geographic Society that one 

 finds it hard to realize how wide-spread 

 is the geographic interest it has engen- 

 dered or how many magazines must be 

 printed before each member can receive 

 his or her copy. Two striking illustra- 

 tions of the Society's numerical strength 

 have come home to the Editor in the is- 

 suance of the current number. With one 

 of the largest color printing plants in 

 America engaged in producing the 32 

 pages of flags in colors, it took 75 work- 

 ing days — three months — to print these 

 alone. 



The attention of the reader is directed 

 to the little vacant spaces after flags 640 

 and 666 respectively (pages 350-351). 

 These blank intervals do not seem to be 

 more than negligible ; and yet, running 

 through the entire edition, they occupy 

 more than 700,000 square inches of space, 

 or 1,728 pages the size of the National 

 Geographic Magazine. Put side by 

 side they would form a ribbon of paper 

 twenty miles long. 



Gilbert Grosvenor, 



Editor and Director, • 

 National Geographic Society. 



