The ROMANCE OF THE MAP

Northern Advocate, 8 February 1936, Page 11

The ROMANCE OF THE MAP

QUITE a lot of pleasure can be obtained by the judicious use of maps; but, because today so easily obtained, we frequently pass them by carelessly and indifferently, or with but a cursory glance. Yet, and this is an oft written recommendation, the newspaper reader, taking his daily sheet with any seriousness, can certainly not afford to be careless in this respect. It pays handsomely, too, this interest in place as well as in happening, for gradually there is built up an intimate acquaintance, not only with the general configuration of this earth of ours, but with some little of practical detail in some of its thus better known patches. Is it a small thing to be able to give, even in the roughest and only generally approximate outline, some of the details of a country, an ocean or a national boundary, without referring to an atlas; to be able to place the general direction of the principal mountain ranges and the trend of watersheds; or even, without these, to indicate in some sort where a realm’s main towns may lie? Often enough we drop this with school necessities, and yet it is remarkably easy not only to keep up but to enhance. ,

centuries devoted' to the ceaseless strife for command of the Rhine by France and Germany. There was the tragedy of Poland, for long the bulwark of Eastern Europe against the

hordes of uncivilised and heathen Slavs; its later partition and, as regards nationhood, its practical extinction were a real calamity to the wellbeing of Europe. There was the rise of the once powerful Ottoman Empire, which extended nearly to Vienna in the mid seventeenth century, hanging then like a black nightmare over most of the continent. There was Spain, shut behind her impregnable mountain range, split into rival kingdoms whose frequent quarrels and strife left the Moor a power in her southern provinces for a long period beyond what need have been. There was East Prussia, the true Prussia, the defence and conquest of which was due to the Teutonic knights; for long it was a bulwark of Christendom, afterwards to become aggressive and brutal to all the neighbouring lands, including Christian Poland, thus arousing much resentment and conflict, and finally falling to the house of Hohenzollern, first as the Duchy and later as the Kingdom of Prussia. Here we see 'but one or two of the fascinating problems which, originating back in the distant past, have come down to our own days, and which, for any satisfactory elucidation necessitate the free use of their pictured setting by the map as much as the histories which these are based.

In Roman Days.

It must have been strange in, shall we say for instance, Roman days, to go no further back, when the great outlying provinces, and the still more distant surrounding barbarian nations were spoken of, to have no method of verifying position and accurate direction. Indeed, and at first this strikes a note of surprise, those sturdy Latins probably could much more easily, owing to their fine roads, obtain accurate information as regards the distance from city to city, port to port, and mart to mart, than they could

true facts: of direction and physical conditions. This Roman difficulty does not mean that the map did, not exist. At least as early as 560 B.C. the Greeks took this subject up as a serious study, and one may say that, with sometimes lengthy hiatuses, the development has steadily progressed since. But to the average Roman, even when df the aristocratic or educated classes, cartography can have been but little available, and probably but roughly grasped. It is rather matter for curiosity to recollect that these military explorers, world conquerors and road constructors, paid but little attention to those records which would so illuminate their great

Making Shift.

The traveller, the explorer, the voyager, carrying us in their wake, require that to do them justice we should trace them on map and chart, not infrequently of their own supply-

work, and which we consider of such . imperative need, not only for travel, j but lor comprehension of world prob- * lems, yet such was the case.

On Plane Scale.

Naturally enough, early maps were on a plane scale, representing an earth, or such part as was known or being referred to, as being a relatively flat surface; and, valuable as these were, doubtless, in their day, lacking better, they yet failed as regards any more than approximate accuracy, owing to lack of knowledge of the earth’s shape. When, later, this was comprehended, the development of • projection as the basis of map construction overcame much of the difficulty. Yet, in spite of its short-comings, one cannot but marvel at the correctness of much of the detail to be found in Ptolemy’s map of the world of 150 A.D. It is true that the Mediterranean Sea and its border lands were remarkably well traversed, and had been for long, and, moreover, in their settled parts they had

been subjected to fairly accurate surveying for purposes of establishing definite ownership.

Story of the Empires. In the days of the great empires, the matter of boundaries was of less importance than in later epochs. Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greece and

>Rome held their outer bounds by / their military posts; these they could control and own, but beyond all was alien, without the pale, barbarian. Provincial extent, also, was fairly easy to mark: mountain ranges, the course of a river, sea coasts or desert sands were for the most part ‘convenient enough for this, and therefoie made use of. But with the break-up of the last great Empire, Rome, into numerous kingdoms, principalities and states, often, over long centuries, fluctuating as regards power, extent and the constant variations of the lines of demarcation with every new ruler, there sprang into being a sequence of problems which have left their aftermaths to this day and, seemingly, for many a day to come. Here the study of a good historical atlas provides endless interest, and, be it said, as endless incentive to more and ever more reading. There were the shifting fortunes experienced by the different barbarian invasions of Europe with the crumbling of Rome as a world power. There was the great empire of Charlemagne, at one time likely to succeed to the western half of the Latin holdings and embracing France, most of Germany, the greater part of present Austria, all Switzerland and Belgium. Northern Italy and a slice of Spain. Later came the Burgundian principality, never actually a kingdom, yet on the point of becoming such, then to have been a powerful buffer state extending from the North Sea to the Mediterranean; had this eventuated how different might have been the

Unusual Source of Pleasure

By the “Bookman”

ing in great part. Today how easy this is, and that because of the skilled craftsmen who, with a seeing eye, have transformed into appreciative and instructing detail those parts of the earth’s surface which once were blank, or, if not so left, then labelled, as the old masters of cartography delighted in doing, with scrolls inscribed “here are lions,” or “here live the anrhropophagy” and the like. Akin to such were the always delightful seventeenth century renderings of sea and land, with their galleons in full sail, their huge sporting fishes, their wonderfully picturesque indications of the points of the compass, like the flung web of some tasteful spider, and smaller but equally delectable illustrative additions to the details of the map proper. About these constructions there was always something of the mystery of the more or less imaginary charts of pirate islands, or indications of spots where treasure of doubloons, moidores, pistoles, pieces of eight, ducats, sequins and all the other coins with names so full of romance had been hidden in the long ago.

How to Make Majfe.

It would hardly be just to conclude without a word on the interest of constructing one’s own maps. Many a book not so equipped can be enhanced in interest for a second perusal by the sketching* of important districts, inserting only the places mentioned and thus avoiding much eye fatigue; by recording the march of armies, the ebb and flow of victory and defeat, and many such details. Even little thumb-nail outlines upon a wide margin clear the ground, prevent the lengthy search which might otherwise again become necessary upon a chart of larger scope, and for ever fix some helpful detail in the mind. Yes, most assuredly, the map is a means of instruction, and a remarkably attractive and pleasing one, and especially so when used with a little of that imagination which can be not the least of the spices of life.