Globes are both artistically interesting and scientifically useful. Their principal value is in stimulating sound concepts of worldwide patterns and in rectifying errors induced by the limitations of flat maps. All flat maps distort the Earth's surface patterns, but carefully made globes constitute truer scale models of the Earth, with correct areas, shapes, and distances as well as continuity of surface. Globes have long been used as aids in navigation, in the teaching of earth sciences, and as room ornaments.