MAORIS, nnii',',-rr•z. The aborigines of New Zealand. In ninny respects the most remarkable representatives of the Polynesian race. Above the average in stature, they are more or less robust, with athletic frames. The head-form is dolichorephalie. The women for the most part are strong and vigorous. Muth sexes are adepts in swimming, and the people are fond of bodily exercise. Sane authorities hold, mu iosotlieieut grounds, that the Maoris and other Eastern Polynesians are non-Malay, and Cancasie rather than Mongolic. although they admittedly speak dialects of the common Malayo-Polynesian speech. A few• more venturesome inquirers lin vo even sought to show that the Maori tongue is related to the Aryan family of languages. But all suet) efforts are vain. The Moduli of Chat ham Island are hardly more than a branch of the Maori, with perhaps more of a pre-Maori Mela nesian intermixture, noticeable not only in phys ical elmracteristies, hut also in art. et e. The Maoris are noted for their tattooing, their ornamental and decorative art, their epie poetry, legends, and mythology. In early tim.; the were among the most cannibalistic of Poly nesian peoples, despite their relatively high vul ture. Their long and valiant struggle with the British colonists, in the course of which they displayed some brilliant war tactics, gained for them the respect of their opponents, and they now have their representatives in the Legislature on the same basis as their white fellow country men. The Maoris, scattered over parts of the northern island and the northern portion of the southern island, seem, according to the last census, to be increasing in numbers, and not rapidly dying out as has hitherto been supposed. Considerable intermarriage has also taken place. Consult: tinsel], Raise in der Siidser (Wien. 1884) ; Von (Stuttgart, 18G3) ; White, The Ancient tfistor•y of the _Maori, His Mythology and Traditions (London, 1889) ; Tregear, owl' Polynesian Comparatice Diction ary (Wellington, New Zealand, 1891) : Robley, Moko, or Maori Tattooing (London, 1896) ; Beeves, The Long White Cloud (London, 1898). See POLYNESIANS.
MAP ( from Lat. mappa, napkin). A delinea tion upon a plane surface of objects that are actually located upon a spherical surface. The word was brought into use in the Middle Ages and signified that maps were originally printed on cloth. In common usage map is nearly synonymous with chart, although there is a tendency to limit the former word to representa tions of the earth's surface, while delineations of stars in the celestial vault and of hydrographie facts are generally designated as charts. 'Flue earliest maps were purely empirical drawings presenting the relative positions of known points and defining in a general way the limits of land and water areas. Modern maps. however, whose eonstruction involves a high degree of skill and judgment. are faithful epitomes of our earth knowledge, recording that which is revealed by geographical surveys and discoveries or• added to or taken away from the earth by man's industry.
Ilisronv oF :MAP-MAKING. The earliest ex amples of cartographic art are furnished by the Egyptians and Babylonians. Picture maps illus
trating events as earl• as the fifteenth century me. have been found among the Babylonians, to whom also belongs the credit of dividing the circle into degrees, minutes, and seconds, according to cur present sexagesimal system. The Greeks de veloped the knot•ledge of these ancient peoples upon a scientific basis. Anaximander of Miletus (sixth century n.c.) is credited with the first attempt to draw- a map of the then known world, but the honor of founding the methods of rational cartography must be assigned to Claudius Ptole mams, who lived in the second eelltIll'y A.D. Al though largely indebted to the labors of Ilip parehus, who provided the necessary means for the determination of geographical position, to Eratosthenes, the keeper of the Alexandrian Li brary, and especially to Marinus of Tyre, Ptolemy combined the results of their 11n•e,4igafIrnw mud constructed a general map of the world that not only excelled all previous efforts in this I lirret ion, but is generally reeognized as the most complete summary of geographical knowledge availahte pry vions to the sixteenth century. Under the Romans map making was confined to such de lineations a- were useful for military and polit ical purposes. They did not apply astronomical methods to the art, and the few examples of world maps were constructed upon an oval plan, in which the earth appeared to be twice as long from east to west as front north to south.
The Nliddle Ages witnessed a return to the Homeric conception of a flat circular earth sur rounded by the ocean. With the Renaissance, however, Ptolemy's work again came into use, and when wood and copper engraving began to be employed for the reproduction of maps cartog raphy made rapid progress. To satisfy the in creasing requirements of navigation, the Italians produced a series of nautical charts called loxo dromes, in which all points were connected with The earliest attempt to construct a map of an extended territory upon a trigonometric and to pographic survey—that is, upon modern scientific principles—was made in 1733 by C6sar Cassini, the director of the astronomical observatory at Paris. Assisted at first by the French Academy of Sciences and afterwards by a private company, he undertook to map the entire area of France. The first sheets appeared in 1744 and the last each other by straight lines, which represented compass bearings and enabled the navigator to lay out his course to any objective point. With the progress of geographical discoveries in the teocth. sixteenth. and seventeenth centuries, map making became an established industry in Ger many and Holland. To this period belong the great cartographers—Johann \Verner, of Nurem berg, who in 1513 devised the equal area eordi form projection; Gerhard Kramer, generally were completed in 1793. The work aroused widespread interest among all civilized govern ments, and so forcibly illustrated the value of accurate maps that the French Government soon undertook an elaborate survey, an example that has been generally followed in Europe and Amer ica.