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According to a (published) letter written to the editor of a navigation
magazine a few years ago -

 

"The Ordnance Survey of Great Britain used the Cassini projection for
its County Series of maps on the 1:2,500 scale . . .  Each county in
Britain was surveyed separately and the inevitable distortions meant
that the maps did not fit together too well at their county borders . .
. because the Cassini projection stretches the map in only one
direction, it distorts the angels [sic] and so makes it difficult to
measure distances and bearings accurately . . ."

 

One wonders whether any angels subsequently wrote to the magazine editor
to confirm they had, indeed, became distorted and lost their bearings.
Or did they overcome Cassini's shortcoming with its margins of error,
and hone their navigational skills regardless? We may never know . . .

 

Francis Herbert

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