As The Hunting of the Snark suggests, what gives rise to a map is an absurd logic best appreciated by a mathematician like Lewis Carroll.He had bought a large map representing the sea, Without the least vestige of land: And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be A map they could all understand. ‘What’s the good of Mercator’s North Poles and Equators, Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?’ So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply, ‘They are merely conventional signs!’
Andro Linklater
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