Jorge Luis Borges mentions maps in his short story ‘On Exactitude in Science’. He describes a map whose scale was One mile = One mile, elaborating on Lewis Carroll’s idea in ‘Sylvie and Bruno Concluded’:
“What do you consider the largest map that would be really useful?”
“About six inches to the mile.”
“Only six inches!” exclaimed Mein Herr. “We very soon got to six yards to the mile. Then we tried a hundred yards to the mile. And then came the grandest idea of all! We actually made a map of the country on the scale of a mile to the mile!”
“Have you used it much?” I enquired.
“It has never been spread out, yet,” said Mein Herr: “the farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country and shut out the sunlight! So we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well.”
And what about treasure maps? Many possibilities realised by Robert Louis Stevenson. And love the quality of this Bartholomew’s 1944 edition of ‘British Isles Pocket Atlas’ which I found recently in a Margate cafe/shop. I misread the title as ‘Relative Attitudes’ btw. Another map possibility?
