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B.J.S. Cahill Butterfly Map Resource Page
Octahedral Map of the World
Compiled by Gene Keyes
12th Edition 2009-12-30; more to come

 The Octahedral Butterfly Map of the World, by Bernard J.S. Cahill (1866-1944). first published in 1909, is a sadly neglected monument of world map design. This resource presents some of Cahill's articles, papers, and Butterfly map variants, which he continued to develop during four decades until 1940. Also included are post-Cahill maps by Buckminster Fuller; Steve Waterman; and myself.



Cahill's original Butterfly World Map, 1909

~ ~ ~  2009 being the Centenniel Year of the Cahill Butterfly Map ~ ~ ~

NEW in 12th ed.:
2009-12-30

• "Notes on Re-designing B.J.S. Cahill's Butterfly World Map"
by GK

• "Photos of the Cahill-Keyes Megamap Prototypes"


NEW in 11th ed.:
2009-11-11

• "Geocells and the Megamap", re-formatted, updated, and illustration-links added
• Corrected internal links in "Cahill's Largest World Map"

NEW in 10th ed.:
2009-10-24

• Uploaded photo of B.J.S. Cahill ca. 1940, from his grandchildren
• Uploaded two articles by Waldemar Kaempffert, from Scientific American (1913),
and The New York Times (1943)

NEW in 9th ed.:

Uploaded précis for what was intended to be a revised, enlarged version of my 1973 M.A. thesis

Ten Principles for a Coherent Map System
by Gene Keyes
1973 / 2009

[which is based on my re-design of the Cahill octahedral world map]

Read entire précis

Cahill-Keyes map, silhouette
Cahill-Keyes "Real-World" Map (c. 1975, 2009)


NEW in 8th ed.:
Why Cahill? What about Buckminster Fuller?

Evolution of the Dymaxion Map:
An Illustrated Tour and Critique
[on 17 interlinked pages]

by Gene Keyes
2009-06-15

Summary: I love Bucky, but Cahill's map is a lot better. Here's how.

NEW in 7th ed.:
• Reorganized format and added Contents / Site Map (below)

• Made HTML versions and added:    
     • Cahill's 1913 patent of the Butterfly Map
     • Cahill's1913 patent of a rubber-ball globe which can be flattened into a Butterfly Map
     • Cahill's 1934 article, "A World Map to End World Maps"

• Imported three pdf's of Cahill articles in the Monthly Weather Review:
     • 1928, "Projections for World Maps"
     • 1928, "A New Map for Meteorologists: Equally Suitable for Small Areas, Continents, Hemispheres or the Entire World"
     • 1940, "One Base Map in Place of Five"

• Compiled and annotated a link-list of these online Cahill writings (see below), eight so far, all on this site


CONTENTS / SITE MAP
[In progress; more to come for all categories.]

All items open in separate windows.

Cahill
post-Cahill
1) Papers and publications by Cahill

      1.1) Online
               [itemized below in separate table]

     1.2) Printed matter listing [tba]

     1.3) Unpublished material [tba]
5) Non-Cahill mapwork of Buckminster Fuller

Why Cahill? What about Buckminster Fuller?

 Evolution of the Dymaxion Map:
An Illustrated Tour and Critique
[on 17 interlinked pages]

by Gene Keyes
2009-06-15

Summary: I love Bucky, but Cahill's map is a lot better. Here's how.
2) Online octahedral world map images

     2.1) A Comparative Gallery of 25 Cahill and later octahedral maps [1st ed.]

     2.2) Cahill's largest world map: an analysis with full size online images

     2.3) Cahill's "Variants" clarified [tba]
6) Mapwork of Gene Keyes, inspired by
          Cahill (and Fuller)

     6.1) Map drafts
Here and here (smaller, 1/200 M), and

Here (larger, 1/100 M), and
Click here for photos of much bigger 1/20,000,000 (and 1/1,000,000) prototypes with one-degree geocells.

     6.2) Design notes
•  "Notes on Scaling Cahill and Cahill-Keyes Maps" (1982 . . . 2009)

• "Notes on Re-designing B.J.S. Cahill's Butterfly World Map"  (2009)

      6.3) Papers
"Geocells and the Megamap" (1983)

"10 Principles for a Coherent World Map System" (1973 / 2009)

      6.4) B.J.S. Cahill Resource Page
               (you are already looking at it)

3) Cahill archive listings

    3.1) Three archives at University of California, Berkeley

    3.2) Digitized listing of Cahill map collection at Bancroft Library, U.Cal. Berkeley
7) Cahill-similar mapwork of Steve Waterman

[Analysis pending.]

[tba]
4) Articles about Cahill and his
          octahedral map



1.1) Online papers and publications by B.J.S. Cahill:
Annotated Link-list
[still in progress]

All items are on this website and open in separate windows.

Chronological by earliest date; publication date boldface.

1909-02 / 1909-09

1) Cahill, B.J.S., "An Account of  a New Land Map of the World" (The Scottish Geographical Magazine, 1909-09) p. 449-469 [reproduced in 21 jpegs]

     The first publication and exposition of the Butterfly Map. Strong critique of Mercator for classrooms.


1912-03-05 / 1913-02-25

2) Cahill, B.J.S., "Map of the World", U.S. Patent 1,054,2761913 (Washington, DC: United States Patent Office, 1913-02-25; filed 1912-03-05.) 3 p.

     Cahill's patent of the Butterfly Map itself. Online here as jpegs, pdf, or HTML.


1912-10 / 1913-10

3) Cahill, B.J.S., "A Land Map of the World on a New Projection" (Journal of the Association of Engineering Societies, 1913-10; orig. 1912-10) p. 153-207
     Cahill's longest and most thoroughgoing published exegisis of his Butterfly Map; also includes 50 illustrations, 20 of which are a comparison of various map projections to the same scale using the same size globe-circle for each. Over three decades before Buckminster Fuller’s 1943 Dymaxion map, Cahill had already created a far more elegant octahedral world map, and shown how it is designed for thinking “planetarily”. Article is re-formatted in HTML with all the illustrations.

1913-02-11 / 1913-12-09

4) Cahill, B.J.S., "Geographic Globe" (Washington, DC: United States Patent Office, 1913-12-09; filed 1913-02-11) 2 p. + extra photo.
     Cahill's patent for a rubber-ball globe which can flatten to a Butterfly Map, or return to ball shape. Online here as jpegs, pdf, or HTML.

1928-12-28 / 1929-04

5) Cahill, B.J.S., "Projections for World Maps"

   —and text continued in separate pdf, plus illustrations:—

6) Cahill, B.J.S., "A New Map for Meteorologists: Equally Suitable for Small Areas, Continents, Hemispheres or the Entire World" – both from Monthly Weather Review, 57/4, 1929-04) p. 128-133; illus.
     Has Cahill's only published [partial] world map with a one-degree graticule, except on land areas; as well, one of his only published five-degree world maps, regrettably discontinuous on two pages. See similar map in #7 below, octants together, but in an awkward north-south spread, which I also show enlarged ; and cf #8 below, in Butterfly layout.

Pdf's re-posted here for convenience; source URLs were:
http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/057/mwr-057-04-0128.pdf http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/057/mwr-057-04-0130.pdf

1934

7) Cahill, B.J.S., "A World Map to End World Maps" (Geografiska Annaler, 1934) p. 97-108.
     Argues against proliferation of arcane projections, and sets  forth three major Variants to improve upon his original design: Conformal, Equal Area, and Gnomonic, within his basic octahedral framework. "When finally map and globe practically agree . . . the need of further world mapping comes naturally to an end."

1940-04-03; 1940-05-20

8) Cahill, B.J.S., "One Base Map in Place of Five" (1940) Monthly Weather Review, 68/2, 1940-02 [1940-05-20], p.4; 1 illus.
     Again urges the meteorological community to display data on a single world map, his Conformal Variant. Unlike items 6 and 7 above, here the map is shown in its customary Butterfly profile, Pacific aspect. This was Cahill's final article; he died in 1944 after a long illness.

Pdf re-posted here for convenience; source URL was http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/068/mwr-068-02-0041.pdf



B.J.S. Cahill (1866-1944)
Architect and Cartographer
Source: Scanned by Gene Keyes in 2007 from undated duplicate of photo (1930s?) at
Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley, Bernard Joseph Stanislaus Cahill Papers, (83/39)


B.J.S. Cahill, ca. 1940
B.J.S. Cahill, ca. 1940
Source: pdf from Cahill grandchildren; converted to jpeg by GK.

Photos reproduced with permission from the descendants of B.J.S. Cahill:
 Susan Cahill Aylward, Stanley James Cahill, and Laura Cahill Huber.

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