Excellent.

An excellent book ...

A prerequisite for finding our way through any story or novel is to be lost: the journey can’t begin until we’ve been set down in a place somehow unfamiliar.  As readers, we are content, even delighted, to be lost, in the sense that we are both absorbed and uncertain of where we are or where we are going, as long as we feel confident we are following a guide who has not only the destination but our route to it clearly in mind.

Peter Turchi, from Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer

Urgency.

An image which captures, perfectly, the urgency of life in the rare map trade: me, answering a customer enquiry after a good lunch. pic.twitter.com/zEKASDLstV

— Tim Bryars (@TimBryars) May 22, 2023

America.

Wells, North America, 1699

Grand.

Findings.

An excellent book ...

We do not know whether [Hipparchus] drew maps--perhaps he did--but the truth is that in his day he could not possibly have applied his projections to the globe because the necessary data, in the form of correct findings of latitudes and longitudes of a very large number of places over the known areas of the earth, were not available. This was the weakness of all Greek cartographic science. In Greek times mathematics was in advance of mechanical instrumentation: There was no instrument for easily and correctly determining the longitude of places. However, the Piri Re'is and the other maps we went on to study, seemed to suggest that such an instrument or instruments had once existed, and had been used by people who knew very closely the correct size of the earth. Moreover, it looks as if this people had visited most of the earth. They seem to have been quite well acquainted with the Americas, and to have mapped the coasts of Antarctica.

Charles H. Hapgood, from Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings: Evidence of Advanced Civilization in the Ice Age

Expansive.

Bretez, Plan of Paris, 1734

This expansive engraved view of Paris covers the first eleven arrondissements of modern Paris. With a combined width of over ten feet, the joined plan makes for an arresting centerpiece. Turgot's is perhaps the best record of Paris in the 18th century, before its transformation by Georges-Eugène Haussmann and Emperor Napoleon III. It is widely regarded as one of the most important city views of all time.

The Mayor of Paris, Michel-Étienne Turgot, commissioned Louis Bretez, a member of the Académie de Saint-Luc to create an impressive image of the city. He was given license to survey wherever he needed and could enter private property if the task required. The end result was to be a statement piece, one which was presented to dignitaries, foreign and domestic alike, to reinforce their esteem of Paris.

Historians suspect that Bretez was awarded the commission in part because of the work he had already done on architectural perspective, some of which was published in his 1706 book La perspective pratique de l'architecture . Claude Lucas was Bretez's engraver.

A detailed view of this wonder is available at Barry Lawrence Ruderman.

Excellent.

An excellent book ...

Evolved.

This Map Lets You Plug in Your Address to See How It’s Changed Over the Past 750 Million Years

The interactive tool enables users to home in on a specific location and visualize how it has evolved between the Cryogenian Period and the present ..

Michigan.

Carey, A New Map of Part of the United States of North America, exhibiting the Western Territory, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia & C. also, the Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Ontario & Erie; with Upper and Lower Canada & C. from the latest Authorities, 1805

Thomas Jefferson created the Michigan Territory on this date in 1805.

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Process.

Mitchell, British and French Dominions in North America, 1757

Click HERE to explore this map in the APS Digital Library

In Early America, people used maps to define physical and political borders and to illustrate ideas about the world. The processes of mapmaking—surveying, drawing, engraving, and printing—could produce competing visions of the same landscape.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, maps of North America were battlegrounds on which European empires, Native American nations, and North American colonists fought for control of territory and resources. After the American Revolution, maps became part of the nation-building process.

Even as mapmakers sought to represent a connected and united citizenry, maps reinforced the exclusion of many groups from full participation in the new nation. The United States imagined by these maps continued to displace Native peoples from their lands to create spaces for westward expansion. Maps from the Early Republic (c. 1780–1816) reveal just how complicated the process of nation-building was—and continues to be today.

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Coldest.

Cartography.

Ben Sack cartography ...

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Plan.

Rocque, A Plan of the Cities London and Westminster, and Borough of Southwark, with the Contiguous Buildings, 1746

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Faces.

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Density.

Sargent, Density of Existing Forests, 1883

Venice.

The walkways and bridges of Venice ...

Delivered.

With only a drawing of a map for guidance, a piece of mail was delivered to a farm in West Iceland.

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Cheer.

It’s been a good year for map lovers. Whether you’re into old maps, new maps, or new ways of interacting with old maps, there was much to cheer about in 2016.

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Inspire.

I’ve always loved the visitor maps you get when you visit a national park. I’ve got little stashes of them tucked into the seat back pockets of my car and hidden away in closets. I can never bring myself to toss the maps when I get home from a trip. With their combination of photos, maps and text they bring back memories of where I’ve been and inspire me to think of adventures still waiting to be had.

Tom Patterson is one of the people who makes those maps. He’s visited more than 100 national parks, including some of the most far-flung and least visited. As a senior cartographer for the National Park Service, it’s Patterson’s job to make sure the maps visitors see at U.S. national parks, monuments, battlefields, and other sites are up to date and easy to use, even for people who aren’t cartographically inclined.

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Packed.

I think of the latest high-tech maps—like Google’s maps for automated cars and the new brain map from the Allen Institute—as maps for machines. They’re so packed with information that they’re nearly impossible to comprehend just by looking. 

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