About Maps
| Published date | 01 October 1940 |
| Date | 01 October 1940 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X4001300407 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
About Maps
IF
you buy aone-inch Ordnance map at the local bookstall
you will get an example of one of the following editions: the
Popular, the Tourist, the Fifth Edition. Closer study will show
considerable differences in these maps.
This
is a reminder that
the map-maker's object is to present you with as real and
complete a picture of the countryside as possible, and that as
new ideas of presentation develop he is prepared to abandon
earlier methods.
He
is beset by many problems, and astudy
of some of them should give us a greater understanding of the
map itself.
PROBLEMS FOR THE
MAP-MAKER
The
earth is round, or since it is very slightly flattened at
the poles, nearly round.
If
you want to show off, you call it
a geoid, which simply means earth-shaped.
The
only true way
of showing
theworld
accurately to scale is on a globe of the
same shape,
but
a globe is an awkward piece of furniture. Yet
the map you buy is flat, and claims to show a piece of country
with great accuracy. Here is an apparent contradiction which
must be explained. One day when you have finished your
half grapefruit, take the peel and
try
to lay it flat on a board.
You will have to
cut
it in several places to do this, and even
then there will be gaps between the pieces.
To
join the pieces
together you will have to tear and stretch them.
In
so tearing
and stretching them they lose their original shape, direction
and size.
This
experiment shows in exaggerated form one of the
map-maker's problems.
The
roundness of
the
earth is not so
great as to matter much over an area of
700
square miles, which
is roughly the area shown on a one-inch Ordnance sheet. But
if the whole of the British Isles is plotted as if the earth were
flat, in sections each of
700
square miles, these maps would not
4°5
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