18 FEBRUARY 1899, Page 27

The Navy League Map. (W. and A. K. Johnston. 31s.

6d.)—The map published by Messrs. Johnston for the Navy League is an excellent piece of work. It is clearly printed and boldly coloured, and shows at a glance the place of the British Empire in the world. But the designer was not content with painting the best parts of the globe red. The mighty margin—the map when displayed is some six feet or more square—is filled with statistical information of all kinds. One column gives the area, population, revenue, railway mileage, exports and imports of the Empire. Another compares the Navies of the world, a third deals with trade routes, and, perhaps most useful of all, a fourth gives the distances between various important ports, and thus forms a sort of Imperial Mogg. It is a map which should be in every public office, and all private individuals who care to study the growth and configuration of the Empire should acquire it. The map has for a motto Bacon's declaration that " the wealth of both Indies seems in great part but an accessory to the command of the seas." That is good, but perhaps Bacon's terse statement that the command of the sea "is an abridgment [i.e., an epitome or abstract] of Empire" is even better.