The flat political maps of the past made no attempt to show any structural features except those of horizontal or level plains, markings which show the locations of mountain ranges and volcanoes, and lines indicating rivers and outlines of continents or coasts.
These maps have had comparatively little meaning to the young pupil. There was in them no suggestion of solidity or mass; the contents to him seemed flat and thin, and confined between coasts which were sharply defined. Tent-like mountains crossed ghost-like surfaces, and thread-like rivers were made to zigzag along in an erratic and irresponsible way, showing to him no reason whatever for their being.
Many teachers or pupils have not known how to interpret maps. They have not realized that, where rivers rise in certain localities (especially if more than one rises in the same place), there is a reason for their rising just there and for their flowing in different directions; that their source is probably at an elevation or rise of land (called a divide or water-parting), that there is likely to be more rainfall on the side of the mountain range that has the more rivers, and that this has a close relation to the direction of the prevailing winds.
Natural Boundaries. In the past study of these maps, outlines of political divisions have been memorized. It was not realized that many of the boundaries of those areas were fixed in the beginning by the very nature of the surface structure, and that they are where they are, simply because they could not well be anywhere else. (See Mexico, India, Italy.)
Map of the Chicago Drainage Canal.
(With larger map showing its relation to Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River, also sections in detail.)
History. We have seen that the study of history cannot be successfully taught without a knowledge of structural geography on the part of teacher and pupil; so we may say the same of maps, that their use is of fundamental importance in that study, and the ability to read them understandingly is as indispensable as it is in the study of geography. To try to teach history otherwise would be a waste of time and effort.