New Britain herald., 1926-04-23
MAP HUNTING IS
 AN INDOOR SPORT
Said to Be Equal to Cross Word
 Puzzles

Washington, D, c" April 2S --- Equal in interest to cross word pug zIcs Is the game Of map hunting The by.product of cross word puzzles is an increused vocabulary, The ly.product of map hunting is a vo- cahulary of words from score or more of ancient and modern lan- guages. and s fresh point Of view ot geography.
 Problems may hn selected from lnr news of tho day or from the map itscIt. Right now Chinese armies are fighting for possession Of Peking. The question is what does peking mean to the Chinese?
 EQudistant from Picking are places named Nanyuan and Peiyuan The syllable "pe" or "pei" is fla mtlar one in Chinese names, So is man, Everyone will think Of Ranking. Further inspection ot the map shows that Picking bears the same relation to Ranking. as Nanyuan does to Pciyuan; that IS, the "pe" is north and the nan IS south. When we remember from history that Ranking was one of the favorite capitals of China, the puzzle is solved; Picking means the north capital and Ranking means the south capital.
 The Puzzle of Three IDS"
 Not only Chinese words but Rus sian, Spanish, Arabic and words Of many other languages also, may hc learned as readily by exploring oH- reditious--o a map,' says bulI"- tin from the National Geographic society's headquarters at Washing ion T.. C,
 As grade school pupil in geography. everyone had 10 learn the major rivers of Europe, What satisfac ction when Russia finally was reachedf for there ran the rivers of the three D's; the Dniester, Dniepor and the Don, They were easy, Yet the repetition of the D should have aroused suspicion. An adult intellect can see that there is some thing wrong between the "d' and the m of the first two names, \ vowel has been left out. Perhaps fl is the 70" left in Don; Donicster Donieper-three DonS for three E rivers. Don must be Russian foI river" The map of Russia also shows that Dniester is south of tho Dnicpcr, so one may correctly as sume that what the Russians really mean is lower river, upper river, and the river
 Throughout the desert regions oI northeast Africa and into Arabia the map explorer is confronted Witf the term "Bir" before names indica- ting small places; l}ir Garrab il Egypt, Bir Soluk in Cyrcnaica, Bir el-Mclosah on the Damascus Bag I}agdad post route. Fir make one think of famous Biblica name Beersheba. In the desert community exists either where thgr is running water to make a pool 0 q well to supply water by bucket Running water is so rarG In tin desert that 1t is generally markc by large community, an oasis an therefore, "bir" probably is Arahi for well.
 The Wells of BcershCba
 Indeed Beersheba confirms thtt Shcba's wells were seven. Tn" supply water to thirsty travellers to day even as they did to Abraham and Sarah. In Brersheba Jaco robbed Esau of his birthright and [ the crossroads of sthe "birs" cam Elijah fleeing from the origina Je2cbe. On the limestone walls c the wells are deep lines worn h thousands upon thousands of rope mute history of the yonerabI place.
 "Bcfore leaving this section ( Inc map one should learn easily tha a "wady' is q stream bed. dry mos of the year. Another Arabic wor which now frequently pops into th daily news is "Jebeh" The Jcbr or Gchal Druses who are troublin the French in Syria are the "mour tain" pruecs. Jchcl marks man mountain ranges in Africa an "Joh' appears beside single peak V the other end Of the Moditel rancau is Grhal-al-Tarik -- no Gibraltar,
 Your seasoned map explore never trusts spelling. He trust sounds far moro, Io will "hcar similarity between 'Wady" an 40 first sylahlo of Guadalquiyr The "Waly-al-Kohtr." the grr. river, is just as much q memorial 7 'Ho Arabic Invasion of Spain as II halls of Granada. Guad1Iaiara. Mexico. is an Arabic "wady" nan hat shipped 10 'hn New World on spanish conqwstador's galleon.
 The "Grcat Great River"
 One of the favorite lessons ln" geography class room is th. lanrtze kianC river is gro error. Since "ldang" means "grr river" the poor Chinaman struggliu with English would he a trine cor used 10 hear an American say wh3 would sound to his ears "Yankti great river river" The same pr,