A military dictionary

by William Duane

MANUFACTURES d’armes, Fr. Places appropriated for the manufacturing of arms. During the old government of France, three places were appropriated for the manufacturing of arms; one at Maubeuge, one at Charleville and Nourzon, and the third at St. Etienne en Foret. These were called royal manufactories of arms for public service. A director general superintended the whole, to whom every person concerned in the undertaking was subject, and who was himself subordinate to those artillery inspectors and comptrollers, that were severally appointed by the grand master of the ordnance and the secretary at war.

The United States have manufactories of arms at Harpers ferry, on Potomac; at Springfield, Massachusetts; at Washington City; and at Rocky Mount, S. Carolina.

MAP, in a military and geographical sense, is a plane figure, representing the surface of the earth, or a part thereof, according to the laws of perspective; distinguishing the situation of cities, mountains, rivers, roads, &c.

In maps these three things are essentially necessary. 1. That all places have the same situation and distance from the great circles therein, as on the globe, to show their parallels, longitudes, zones, climates, and celestial appearances. 2. That their magnitudes be proportionable to the real magnitudes on the globes. 3. That all places have the same situation, bearing, and distance, as on the earth itself.

Maps are either universal, which exhibit the whole surface of the earth; or partial, which exhibit some particular part thereof: each kind is called geographical or land-maps, in contradistinction to hydrographical or sea-maps, representing the seas and sea-coasts, properly called charts.

As a map is a representation of some part of the surface of the earth delineated upon a plane, the earth, being round, no part of the spherical surface of it can be accurately exhibited upon a plane; and therefore some have proposed globular maps. For this purpose a plate of brass might be hammered, or at a less expence a piece of paste-board might be formed into a segment of a sphere, and covered on its convex side with a map projected in the same manner as the papers of the common globe are. A map made in this method would show every thing in the same manner, as it would be seen upon a globe of the same diameter with the sphere upon the segment of which it was delineated: and, indeed, maps of this sort would in effect be segments of such a globe; but they are not in common use.

The ancients described all parts of the known earth in one general map. In this view one of them compares the shape of the earth to the leather of a sling, whose length exceeds its breadth: the length of the then known parts of the earth from east to west was considerably greater than from north to south; for which reason, the former of these was called the longitude, and the other the latitude.

The modern general maps are such as give us a view of an entire hemisphere, or half of the globe; and are projected upon the plane of some great circle, which terminates the projected hemisphere, and divides it from the other half of the globe, at the equator, the meridian, or horizon of some place. From the circle the projection is denominated, and said to be equatorial, meridionial, or horizontal.

Particular maps are such as exhibit to us less than an hemisphere; of this sort are maps of the great quarters into which the earth is divided, as Europe, Asia, Africa, and America; or maps of particular nations, provinces, countries, or of lesser districts.

A particular map is a part of a general one, and may be made upon the same principles, as by projecting a large hemisphere, and taking so much of it as the map is designed to contain. When we are to delineate a map of the smaller part of the earth, if it be near the equator, the meridians and parallels may be represented by equi-distant straight lines; if at some distance from the equator, the parallels may be equi-distant straight lines, and the meridian straight lines, a little converging towards the nearest pole; or the meridians may be straight lines, converging towards the nearest pole, and the parallels circular.