i8o 
The American Geologist. September, 1903. 
only the specialist is able to interpret from the contour map, 
and to attract wide attention to some specially instructive area 
by presenting the most expressive illustration possible. Can 
the mechanical relief map, confessedly conventional, accomp- 
lish this end satisfactorily? The fine model of the Jung Frau, 
which attracted thousands of persons to it daily at the Paris 
Exposition, made by the modern school of Swiss scientists, 
is an answer. The Washington city models which since their 
installation in the Library of Congress last spring, have been 
daily sought out by a large number of visitors, is another in- 
stance of the public appreciation of truthful work in topo- 
A Truthlul Model of Alphine Peaks made by the Heim School. The 
accuracy and expressive of this work appeals not only to 
the naturalist but to the public as well. 
graphic models. There were a number of American mechan- 
ical models at the Paris Exposition which were scarcely no- 
ticed, and there have been similar reliefs in the Congressional 
Library for a number of years past that seem incapable of ob- 
taining the recognition of the public. 
If, then, an important object of the topographic relief is to 
bring as much public attention as possible to an area where the 
map is inefficient, the mechanical relief can not ky merit take 
the place of the truthful model. The bringing of topographic 
data which otherwise must remain as a closed book, to all but 
