21 MARCH 1931, Page 40

The War and the motor car between them have undoubtedly

popularized the use of maps. Thus Dr. I. J. Curnow s agreeable and well illustrated account of map-making ancient and modern, under the title of The World Mapped (Sifton Praed, 5s.) should find readers. He describes the methods of the ancients and shows how Ptolemy's maps satisfied most landsmen until the Renaissance. The sailors, however, had their own charts or " portolans," the information on which was used by the sixteenth century cartographers led by Mercator. Modem maps based on exact surveys began in France, for military purposes, but when our own Ordnance Survey was established in 1784 it quickly gained pre-eminence.

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