to the eye we use what we call plans, or maps. But what are plans, or maps?
We all know what pictures are. Here we see the picture of a schoolroom.
Picture of a city schoolroom.
It almost seems as if we were in it. There are desks and blackboards, pupils, teacher, teacher's table, pictures, etc., all looking just like the things themselves.
Pictures, then, are drawings that show how things look.
2. Plans, or Maps, are different. They are drawings that show where things are. They tell in what direction things are from one another, and how far apart they are.
Here we have a plan of the schoolroom, the picture of which is shown above.
Plan of the schoolroom in the picture.
Let us make a plan of our own schoolroom on the blackboard.
The first thing is to represent the sides. Suppose we measure them. We can see that they cannot be drawn on the blackboard as long as they really are.
So we will let one inch on the blackboard represent one foot. Then we will draw all the sides so many inches long, instead of so many feet long.
Now how shall we show directions in our plan? We cannot show them exactly as they are; but we will call the top of the plan north, the right hand east, the bottom south, and the left hand west.
We have now drawn the schoolroom floor. But there is nothing on it. That will never do. So we will make some little marks that shall show just where the desks and chairs are. Then we shall have a plan, or map, of the schoolroom floor and of the things, upon it.
Our plan is a great deal smaller than the floor really is, but all the parts are made smaller alike, or in proportion. The plan is said to be drawn on a scale of 1 inch to 1 foot, which means that every inch on the plan stands for 1 foot.
Now what does the plan show? It shows just where everything is, in what direction things are from one another, and how far apart they are.
We can see that the door is on the north side of the room, that the teacher's desk is on the west side, and that the windows are on the south. We can see in what direction each pupil is from every other.
Then, again, we can tell how far each thing is from every other. If it is twenty inches on the plan from one boy's desk to the door, you know that that boy has to walk twenty feet to reach the door when he is going home, because every inch stands for one foot.
3. Picture of a Village.—Here is a picture of a village with its streets, its railroad station, its factory, its churches and its homes. Does it not look just like a village? You can see the train coming into the station, and the stream which
