In 1923, a group of young sappers was surveying an inaccessible part of Africa. At the end of a hard day's work under the tropical sun, a single hill remained to be plotted onto the plane table. The men were eager to return to base; it occurred to one of them that it was only a little hill and could easily be filled in, by the eye of faith and a little imagination, in the drawing office. The suggestion was approved. The inventive gentlemen cut out a picture of an elephant from a magazine, fixed it to their map, creating form lines for the hill they had not surveyed. The elephant-shaped hill may still be seen today in the north-west corner of sheet 17 of Africa (Gold Coast) in the British 1:62,500 map series.
The above was taken verbatim from The Dictionary of Imaginary Places , Alberto Manguel and Gianni Guadalupi
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