Everyone from time to time makes use of maps.....yet of these people probably not one in ten knows that the ideas so derived are inaccurate to a degree which may fairly be called misleading.

On Mercator's maps the size of all polar countries is enormously exaggerated, Greenland for instance, appearing to be many times the size of India, whereas it has approximately the same area..... In these and various other ways maps not only on Mercator's projection, but on any other projection, are and must be faulty....

...It is hardly necessary to state that no difficulties of any magnitude are encountered in making maps of moderate areas. A flat map of England may be made, which, for the purpose of studying geography, may be looked upon as absolutely accurate; but a map showing half the world, or the whole world must be distorted to a considerable extent. While, however, this is true, it is also true that in such maps it is generally possible to preserve some one important quality by sacrificing others.

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