I thank you for the article from _The Argonaut_, and am glad to get it
for a special reason, as it gives me your address and thereby enables
me to explain something.
When, several years ago, you sent me a similar article I took it to
the editor of The National Geographical Magazine (I am a member of the
Society that issues it) and suggested its publication. I left it with
him and hearing nothing about it for several months called at his
office _twice_ for an answer, and for the copy if publication was
refused. The copy had been "mislaid"--lost, apparently--and I never
obtained it. Meantime, either I had "mislaid" your address, or it was
only on the copy. So I was unable to write you. Indirectly, afterward,
I heard that you had left California for parts to me unknown.
Twice since then I have been in San Francisco, but confess that I did
not think of the matter.
Cahill's projection[16] is indubitably the right one, but you are "up
against" the ages and will be a long time dead before it finds favor,
or I'm no true pessimist.
[16] The Butterfly Map of the World.
Sincerely yours,
AMBROSE BIERCE.
[The Olympia Apartments, Washington, D. C.,
January 17, 1913.]