The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1912-12-12
MAP OF THE WORLD WILL BE
FINISHED IN 8 OR 10 YEARS
Work Undertaken Recently by Leading
Nations, While Costly Viii
Be Accurate and Valuable.

The first sheet of the United States
portion of the international map of the
world has just been issued by the
United States Geological survey, and
includes Rhode Island and portions of
New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts
New Hampshire, Maine and Nova SEQ
tia. This world map, recently under
taken by the leading nations, is being
prepared on the scale of l to 100000
that is, linear inch on the map rep
resents 100000 inches, or nearly 16
miles on the the earth's surface. The
map is to consist of about 1900 sheets
covering all the land areas Of the
world, each sheet representing de-
grees of latitude and degrees of long
itude. The sheets will be numbered
according to a scheme covering the
whole world and the symbols indicat-
ing the natural features and works OF
man will be uniform on all the sheets
1t has been the dream of geographers
for many years to have an information
al map scientifically constructed on &
uniform scale, and the work is nov
well under way. The maps at present
available, printed on all sorts of scales
in biographies and aliases, where the
| most important areas are allotted the
greatest space, inevitably lead to mis-
conceptions as to the relative size of
the different countries. Thus it is moi
generally known that the area of Eng
/ land, Scotland and Ireland together is
less than that of any one of our five
largest states: or that Texas is much
larger than France: or that the new
states of New Mexico and Arizona are
of the Balkan countries of Bulgaria
Rumania, Servia and Montenegro, nov
engaged in war with Turkey; or that
Argentina is more than three times the
size of the thirteen original states
With an international map on a uni
form scale the study of comparative
geography will become far more fas
cinating and instructive.
At the present rate Of progress the
United States portion Of the interna-
tiona map should be finished withir
eight or ten years. 1t will be by far
the best map of the country in exist.
ence. There is in fact no very accur-
ate map of the United States as g
whole, although the Geological Survey
publishes base map about feet wide
and the general land Office has issued
"a similar map. Most of the CONNER.
cial maps, though pretty to look up.
on, are full of gross errors. For a su-
perficial study of the country the or
binary maps may serve the purpose
but when one finds a town or miles
out of position with reference to
~ ilroad or some other town he real
'e'S 'ibt WV kiNS'i' ht'N N''NiiHlA
or atlas map Is anything but accurate
The Geological Survey has topo-
graphically mapped in great detail
more than one-thrd of the United
States, but these maps are mostly on
Il scale Of mile or miles to the inch
ana are too large for ordinary com
parative purposes. The Boston sheet
of the millionth-scale map is a very
accurate map and is beautiful pro.
duct of the cngrave;'s and lithograph-
er's art. printed on fine snamelcd pa
per This sheet is sold by the Geologi-
cal Survey at the bare cost of produce
ton, namely Ace. which viii be the
price of the other sheets as issued
Thus the entire map of the United
States viii cost $20.S0. As a prelimin-
AIRY to the issuance Of the completed
color sections of the United States por-
ton Of the worlds map the survey is
printing in black and white, state maps
on the scale of ! to 100000, being thus