“What’s the good of Mercator’s North Poles and Equators,
Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines”
So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply,
“They are merely conventional signs!”

“Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!
But we’ve got our brave Captain to thank”
(So the crew would protest) “that he bought us the best—-
A perfect and absolute blank!”

—Lewis Carroll, from The Hunting of the Snark.