http://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Longitude2.html
In 1969, American cartographer Waldo R. Tobler formulated what is
know as the First Law of Geography: ‘Everything is related to
everything else, but near things are more related than distant
things.’
from Scientific American article:
Maps are overviews, “surveys of a space of possibilities,” that
lay out a variety of possible paths. Maps almost always rely on
cardinal directions, usually east-west and north-south, that
anchor them to a larger space.
from: http://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Longitude2.html
Groups of scientists began meeting in London and Oxford from 1645 and certainly the longitude problem was one of the main problems which they discussed. A poem written in 1661 described the work going on at Gresham College (see [6]):-
The Colledge will the whole world measure,
Which most impossible conclude,
And Navigators make a pleasure
By finding out the longitude.
Every Tarpalling shall then with ease
Sayle any ships to th’Antipodes.
[Tarpalling is old spelling for tarpaulin which, in addition to its meaning as a piece of material used for protecting exposed objects, means a sailor ]