The ordinary stereographic projection of the world in two hemispheres is utterly worthless as giving a true impression of the whole; for the linear scale at the margins of the circles is twice that at their centres. Its only merit is that there is no angular distortion. Mercator's projection gives a still more fallacious impression, except as regards the equatorial regions.

It appears to me therefore that there is a want, in the school-room and lecture-room, of some map which shall give a more truthful representation of the globe than the above, and which yet shall not be so expensive and cumbrous as a globe.

A gnomonic projection on to the faces of a regular icosahedron is but very slightly distorted, although a slight amount of angular distortion is here introduced. I have been told that at the recent Geographical Congress at Paris, some such projections as this were exhibited, and that they were of old date. Mr Proctor has also made star-maps by projection on to the faces of a regular dodecahedron; but in 1873, when the idea occurred to me of using this projection, I was not aware of the fact.

If the icosahedral projection be developed and arranged as a band of ten triangles round the equator, with saw-like edges of five triangles in the north and five in the south, a very fair representation of the globe is given.