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I remember a number of years ago reading an old Czech tale about a patrol
of soldiers out in some mountains in the snow, and getting lost.  They
panicked, and their leader calmed them by producing a map. They found their
way to safety and, in the pub, asked to look at this wonderful document.
He showed them a map of a completely different mountain range than the one
that they were in.
 
Does anyone recognise this story? Can you tell me where it originated and
what the proper version is? I am aware that I have paraphrased it very
poorly.
 
Does anyone have any other nice tales about maps. There is of course the
classic Mark Twain story of the map at a scale of 1 : 1 that gets dragged
out from time to time. I find stories like this useful for enlivening my
lectures to students, and am always in search of more (also references to
nice cartoons featuring maps as well).
 
Cheers,
Darius Bartlett
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