| Maps and Math--A few resources | |
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About the Course
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More about GIS The National Geographic Society Association of American Geographers A history of cartography, maintained @ the U of Wisconsin Global participatory "Fool's World Map" project. note: this is not a rigorous academic work :-) The official Geocaching site Extra-terrestrial maps @ NASA |
WE went to sleep about four o'clock, and woke up about eight.
The professor was setting back there at his end, looking glum. He pitched us
some breakfast, but he told us not to come abaft the midship compass. That was
about the middle of the boat. Well, when you are sharp-set, and you
eat and satisfy yourself, everything looks pretty different from what it done
before. It makes a body feel pretty near comfortable, even when he is up in a
balloon with a genius. We got to talking together.
There was one thing that kept bothering me, and by and by I says:
"Tom, didn't we start east?"
"Yes."
"How fast have we been going?"
"Well, you heard what the professor said when he was raging round. Sometimes, he
said, we was making fifty miles an hour, sometimes ninety, sometimes a hundred;
said that with a gale to help he could make three hundred any time, and said if
he wanted the gale, and wanted it blowing the right direction, he only had to go
up higher or down lower to find it."
"Well, then, it's just as I reckoned. The professor lied."
"Why?"
"Because if we was going so fast we ought to be past Illinois, oughtn't we?"
"Certainly."
"Well, we ain't."
"What's the reason we ain't?"
"I know by the color. We're right over Illinois yet. And you can see for
yourself that Indiana ain't in sight."
"I wonder what's the matter with you, Huck. You know by the COLOR?"
"Yes, of course I do."
"What's the color got to do with it?"
"It's got everything to do with it. Illinois is green, Indiana is pink. You show
me any pink down here, if you can. No, sir; it's green."
"Indiana PINK? Why, what a lie!"
"It ain't no lie; I've seen it on the map, and it's pink."
You never see a person so aggravated and disgusted. He says:
"Well, if I was such a numbskull as you, Huck Finn, I would jump over. Seen it
on the map! Huck Finn, did you reckon the States was the same color out-of-doors
as they are on the map?"
"Tom Sawyer, what's a map for? Ain't it to learn you facts?"
"Of course."
"Well, then, how's it going to do that if it tells lies? That's what I
want to know."
"Shucks, you muggins! It don't tell lies."
"It don't, don't it?"
"No, it don't."
"All right, then; if it don't, there ain't no two States the same color. You git
around THAT if you can, Tom Sawyer."
He see I had him, and Jim see it too; and I tell you, I felt pretty good, for
Tom Sawyer was always a hard person to git ahead of. Jim slapped his leg and
says:
"I tell YOU! dat's smart, dat's right down smart. Ain't no use, Mars Tom; he got
you DIS time, sho'!" He slapped his leg again, and says, "My LAN', but it was
smart one!"
(From Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer Abroad, Chapter III)