Petermann was very well aware that even topographic maps were not yet a true representation of reality (this is illustrated by the depiction of the Liparian Isles, which were not securely situated until Darondeau's French survey in 1858), let alone medium- and small-scale maps of the interior of continents and the polar regions. One could still hardly speak of dense topographic, orographic and hydrological information. Though the maps in the Stieler looked dense with information, they were mainly filled out with information where space in the image allowed, and the cartographers had little choice what to depict by the lack of known phenomena. The density of information did not indicate how thoroughly an area had been explored, for the cartographers selected their data and drafted the maps in such a way as to give a balanced image as possible. As Petermann put it in 1866: