The trouble with a physical map is that it has the impossible task of showing physical features as they are and so that they can be seen. This is impossible, because if things are shown in their right proportions, and if such natural features as rivers and mountains were drawn true to scale they would appear in most cases as nothing more than faint lines and specks upon the map. As it is absolutely necessary that they be seen clearly at some distance, a gross exaggeration of their apparent size is made necessary. These difficulties are successfully compromised in a series well known in the United States, published by the house of Perthes, and known as the Sydow-Habenicht series. In their color scheme, omission of unnecessary details and general mechanical excellence, they are so satisfactory that they have come to be something like the standard maps for the continents. Their great English competitor is Stanford’s new series of orographical school maps, compiled under the direction of the well-known writer, H. J. Mackinder. Of an equally high character and worked out with somewhat greater elaboration of details are some of the maps of W. & A. K. Johnston, and the series of physical maps published in America by the Rand-McNally Company. Before leaving the subject of physical wall maps, I want to say a word of commendation of the maps of Dietrich Reimer, of Berlin, prepared by Richard Kiepert. The classical maps of Henry Kiepert, published by the same house, are seen in nearly every high school in the country, but the work of Richard Kiepert is altogether too little known. Owing to the influence of mere personal taste one should be very cautious about stating their preferences too confidently while attempting to discriminate between a number of different types of maps, all of which are excellent, but I feel bound to state that I regard Richard Kiepert’s map of Central Europe as representing the great _desideratum_ of map-making. The essential physiographic features of that most intricate region, including the primary and secondary axes of the continent, are exhibited with such clearness that it is possible to use this map before a large class in a college or university lecture course. For all ordinary purposes of the high school, the Sydow-Habenicht map of Europe is sufficient, and as it is the map of the whole continent, the geographical relationships of Europe and Africa and Europe and Asia are shown, as, of course, they cannot be with the Kiepert map, but no college class should be denied the privilege of seeing the Kiepert map or its equivalent, and if there is an equivalent I am not acquainted with it. Some of the maps of the French houses of Delagrave and Hachette & Company are deserving of wider use in this country, but our dependence on English and German publications, for commercial reasons; is not likely to be diminished for several years to come. These French firms apparently make little effort to advertise their wares in the United States, so that the difficulty of keeping track of their latest works and ordering them when they are known, constitutes a serious obstacle to their general use.