Still, the Wigmore can boast throughout its history an enviable record of discoveries.
In the hands of men such as Leonardo da Vinci it was even a science, a means for exploring nature and a record of discoveries.
"No other country matches Britain in its track record of scientific discovery," he says.
More remarkably, he claimed that the Hebrew Bible, in which almost all marriages are polygamous, and women are largely chattels, is a record of the discovery of monogamy.
"The mission and mandate of scientific publishing is to provide a formal record of scientific discovery, not to make publishing companies rich or editors famous," said one of the organizers, Keith R. Yamamoto, a prominent microbiologist and the vice dean for research.
"Drake wanted a record of his discoveries," he said.
Alternatively, route-finders could mark the record of their discoveries directly on the landscape with signs, like Ariadne's thread in the labyrinth.
But explorers like Mr. Meacham can today still dive down to document skulls, pots and artifacts in the untouched cenotes that dot the hinterlands by the thousands, making a record of the discoveries for archaeologists to follow.
At the same time, cartographers tried various projections of the sphere to accommodate the record of geographical discoveries that began in the mid-15th century with Portuguese exploration of the west coast of Africa.
