WCP3502

[1]

Old Orchard

Broadstone

Wimborne

August 16th 1908

Messrs Macmillan & Co

Dear Sirs

I return Mr Stanford’s 2, new maps. I did think that this time, I should not have had an incomplete & very erroneous map sent me for approval!

(1) The first thing that caught my eye was a group of impossible rivers. Look at the three blue X I have put on the outline map near the bottom. At the upper X a river is shown going out of a valley at r[igh]t. angles, running down another parallel valley & then returning into the former! And this same impossible valley leading to the Amazon by the Macas River, is joined across by another impossible river with [2] the tributaries of the Pastasa!

And lastly and worst of all, both these systems are connected by a cross river, with one that flows into the Pacific near Quaqaquil!

Any 4th form schoolboy would be ashamed to send in such a Map — & it is sent to me by a Map-maker with a well known name for my approval!

The upper X shows a stream running out of the deep valley above Canelos!¹

(2) There is not a single road marked on this map, though they are marked both on the Society’s Maps, and in that of Stieler’s "Hand Atlas", and are absolutely essential to the comprehension of a traveller’s routes. They are the old unchanged routes from the date of the Spanish conquest, and are marked on every map I have seen, and in all of the four Atlases I possess, though [3] none are more than 1/5 of the scale of this! They must be put in, as accurately as possible, in this, before I can show Spruce’s routes — for which this map is specially designed.

(3) The Mountain’s are as imperfect as the rest. Quito is on the lower slope of Pichincha, as shewn in both the Maps above referred to, and in the Photo[graph]. in the book. In this Map it looks as if in a valley, miles away from the foot of the Mountain.

Again, Chimborazo and <Carshuarizo> are summits of one great mountain connected by one of the loftiest paramos or passes — as shown in all the Maps. On this Map, no one would imagine [4] that Chimborazo was the loftiest and most important mountain in Ecuador, and long thought to be the ‘Monarch of the Andes’! It is made to look quite insignificant!

By thus reducing the size extent of the mountains, the whole narrow plateau from Quito to Riobamba and Alansi is made to appear far too wide and flat. Its character is shown far better on the Society’s Maps, though these may be often wrong in positions.

It has occupied me half a day to enumerate and explain these stupid imperfections, which are, in my opinion, a disgrace to any firm that sends them out.

Of less importance is putting in the Longitude of Quito as "0°". What possible use but to confuse, is <this> on an English Map?

Yours very truly | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]