JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
Part of the series of The History of Blank, Empty, and Missing Things
“Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!
But we’ve got our brave Captain to thank”
(So the crew would protest) “that he’s bought us the best-
A perfect and absolute blank!”
So goes the fourth fit of the Bellman’s tale in The Hunting of the Snark, featuring a map that I wrote about here, wondering about its absolute beauty of near total blankness.
No doubt this pair of hemispheric maps of the world–printed probably in the 1880’s–were intended as instructionals, or primers, or to be used as outline maps to be filled-in and elaborated by students. Still, standing there out of context as Blank Maps, the have a certain appeal. They don’t have the vigour and the energetic nothingness of the Lewis Carroll Bellman map, but they will have to do for now.
