The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1889-01-29
HOW MAPS ARE MADE.
Dots anh Liars and Crooked Marks II a
Require Months of Labor.

the "reminiscences Of dotted lines Occu-
Ply thousands of pigeOnhOles: library
of crooked marks j. piled to the cell
ing Of fve-story block on Monroe
street. 1t is the largest map house in
the world. and for twelve years has
printed Loo, COO maps a week-624,-
600, 600 pieces of linen paper covered
with dots. lines and crooked marks.
Fortune lies in the accuracy of the
lines and stories in the locations of the
dots. Maps are a. necessary 10 real
estate men ais title deeds, and nearly
as much depends on their accuracy.
A map j. a plain, simple thing that
tells ITS vanished tale at glance.
How is il made? Until about the time
of the great fire maps were engraved
on stone. copper or steel. The process
was very slow, tedious and expensive
The plates soon wore out and maps
| cost about as much as sheet of gold.
About 1870 Buffalo man invented the
process OF making maps on wax. 1t
revOlutiUniZed map-making, and now
maps are az common and nearly as
! cheap a. newspapers.
The map-maE,r works in a room
whose temperature can not run below
! ninety degrees. Few men work at it
| longer than four Years, though years
ofapprentice. lip are required to make
them Expert The neat becomes I'M
endur;:ble in the end and they go into
some Other employment.
Preparatory to making the original
plate melted beeswaX and some hard
ening ingredient are poured on a
highly polished metal table. For fine
work the wax il ~ thin as a piece Of
| paper. but for the COarser kind the
waxen sheet is an eight of an inch
thick. RougA pei and ink drawings
| of the work Ia be cone are given the
operators. They draw the hair-lines
with sharp-pOinted instruments by the
| aid of straight-edgeS. The dotted lines
indicate county or township boundaries
are made with little wheels, on whose
narrow edge are cut the peculiarly de-
| designed lines. All crooked lines are
made by hand and require an artists
| eve. The names OF towns, rivers,
countries and the like are impressed
in the wax in type letter by letter.
Every impression must cut through
the wax to the polished steel plate
beneath. for the map il made face
down. When all the lines and letters
are in, the wax is placed under a cooler
temperature, which hardenS 1t. The
| wax is then covered with black lead
and the steel plate, with its waxen
coat, is suspended in an electrOtyping
solution. The cooper in the solution
covers the black lead and forms hard
plate which is called the original. The
wax is then peeled off and the printing
surface is presented. The thin copper
plate is backed up with type metal
and the plate is ready for use. 1t is
usually preserved. however for the
making of stereotype plates from
which the actual printing is done.
In the preparation of the etchings
great care is required to keep the WAX
at the proper temperature, as de-
gree too low would make it hard to
work and degree too high would
melt and probably destroy it. Often
many hundred thousand maps of the
same pattern are ordered and from
twenty to forty plates are made from
the original. II the maps are small
so many of these plates as can be used
conveniently are placed side by side
on the presses and a sheet of maps is
printed at each impression. The or
binary advertising real-estate map is
finished when it leaves the press. The
better maps are sized and vanished
The larger ones are mounted on roll
ers and wooden strips. This com.
pletes the mechanical process of the
making of a map.
But this is the smallest part of G
map. The unseen work, the prepare
ton of the original draft, represents
the time, labor and money expended
The story of the dot is not woven In
day. Post-office towns are located by
copies of papers in the Post-office De
partment at Washington; the chief en-
gineers of the railroads send profiles
of their lines; county surveyors make
maps of their localities. Where the
Government has made surveys the 10
cation of a section, township or coun
ty line is easily made. But the six
mile township system was not thought
of until the Western reserve of Ohio
was surveyed. In the older States
where a boundary line begins at {
=. stone and runs TO a white-Oak tree
8 the trouble begins. Good local maps
are used in these States. But II
countries where no Government sur
veys have been made the creates
difficulties are Chicdg'
NeUS.