HUGE MAP OF WORLD

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 4 August 1928, Page 11

HUGE MAP OF WORLD

ft MEETING has just been held in London of the Central Bureau of the .Map of the World on the Millionth Scale,” an organisation established two years before the Great War to supervise the production of a standard map of the world for the first time. Each country has been assigned by the hmea 11 a task of mapping its oini area in a .series of standard srcets of specific size. Seventy sheets are required for the United States and territories. Of these only four have boon completed, while nearly the whole of Europe has boon mapped. The official purpose of this huge undertaking, which will, when finished, represent a man nearly 50 yards long, is thus officially set out: “To use the material available to all cartographers with greater accuracy and discrimination than have lieen employed on previously compiled maps; to add to these sources a great mass of material in Government archives; to give, by means of contour and layer tints, topographical expression to our vast knowledge of the i>hvsiograt>hy of both the land area and the sea floor; to p r e c ent the cartographic details obtained from the sources used, so as to distinguish between surveyed and unsurveyed areas: to express the most accurate information available as to location and status of political boundaries, etc.”

An inch on the man will be a million inches, or slightly less than 16

FIFTY YARDS IN LENGTH

miiesi of tne surface of the globe. The sheets of the international map will be- numbered 1 to 60, beginning at the initial meridian of the Pacific Ocean and extending eastward around the world. From the Equator, north ami south, they will be lettered A to Z. The conference in London chose the projection with special . referen.e to th least distortion and to the most advantageous adjustment of adjoining sheets.

Included in the compilation will be control, drainage, culture and topography. The control consists of all positions which have lieen determined astronomically or by triangulation, including the data obtained in the topographical surveys. The drainage is accurately adjusted to the lands office lines and to all other available control. It will be drawn, furthermore, with a view to preserving characteristic points and branchings' of the streams. Besides streams it will include swamps, lakes, canals, and all other water bodies. Under culture will be included political boundaries', states, countries, villages. railways, highways. The control, drainage, and culture constitute a base map. As the mao is completed, it will become available for use bv various countries and organisations. Concurrently with the base mao, the oornpilntion of the torogranhic-il mao will go forward. It is intended to keep the contour open, so that it will not obscure the base map.