Reviews: Principles of Cartography
Reviews: Principles of Cartography
Principles of Cartography
(McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc. 66s.)
Erwin Raisz
This is a text to accompany a course in cartography for American college
Volumes 2 to 6 of this excellently produced work have now arrived for review.
Since the subject matter has reached “Stellar Luminosity”, it is probable that there
is only one volume to come, and this is awaited with interest, together with a
certain amount of pride at being able to display this fine collection as a whole.
One hopes, also, to have an index.
It must be a fearsome task to produce an encyclopaedia-especially in a subject
like physics, which today is moving fast. How difficult it must be to be up to date-
but take a look, say, at seismic prospecting. It is all there-modern reflection
techniques at sea, using “sparker” and “gas-gun”. Again, another new venture
of oceanographers-gravity at sea-is right up to date with a schematic diagram
of the Askania-Graf meter.
Geophysics seem to be most comprehensively covered. For instance, gravity
in general occupies 32 pages of about 900 words a page. The various articles may
have a slight overlap-as with “Gravimeter” (or gravity meter) and “Gravity,
measurement of, on land‘-but this is excellent for two reasons. It gives views
from different writers and it is far better than skimping the number of different
aspects of a subject. Also it is more fun to dig around a little when looking up a
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