The Portland daily press., 1899-01-10
HARD WORK TO MAKE MAPS.
Years Of Labor Sometimes Given to On
Cartographic Product.

Few people have any idea Of the i'm.
mense labor expended upon he production
Of the best maps Prof. Wagner, who oc-
oupies the chair Of geography at the Uni-
versasy OF Gottingen, Gsrmany. was
talking about 1t the other day. This
famous gsoerspher had just completed the
latest revision Of his Atlas Of School
Geography.
IL revise the Atlas about every two
several months Of my timst and in ad.
dition to this have 10 be on the lookout
every day for news Of fresh discoveries,
corrections Of errors shat have crept into
the maps, new p,litical boundaries, new
temperature obssrvstions In the Amazon
basin, for instance, where few metereolo-
gical records have been kept. which may
affect the position Of the isothermal lines
on my maps, and grsat variety Of other
information which necessitates many
changes on my map plates Of moro or less
Importance. have to keep on lie all the
maps from explorers which are published
by the geographical societies Of all lands.
1t is from these maps that most of our
Information about new discoveries and
the correction Of errors IL derived. Then
there are the map sheets Of detailed topo-
graphic survey. ias0ed by the Govern
ments OF nearly all civilized lands They
now number thousands and they must be
fishing houses which aspire to keep their
maps fully abreast Of geosrn phic progress
here is also a great deal Of authorita-
tive literature giving many geographical
facts. such as the distribu tion Of agricul
tural products in country, which may
be clearly indicated Oh the maps We make.
All this information has to be classified
and pigeonholed ready for use when the
time comes for the next map revision.
MANY persons might think that the
most barren and scantily peorled parts OF
the world would not often require correc-
tion on the maps; but this Is not so. In
the Acrtic regions, for instance. within
a short time Peary visits on unknown
part of tae northeast coast of Greenland
and finds q channel leading far west and
separating the main land as far as Is de-
termined from the islands further north
Nansen discovers new facts about the
depth Of the Arctic Ocean, the move
ments OF Arctic currents, mean tempera.
lures. etc, ana pushes mis- work within
250 miles Of the North Pole; then Jack
son appears with an entirely new map OF
Franz Josef Land which completely
changes our ides Of the geography of that
region; nnd Tyrrell traverses part Of
North America west of Hudson's Bay
never before visited and finds new facts
for the maps; and other Canadian ex
plorers trace 30 Hudson's Bay the rivers
that Drain the country to the south of
that inland sea. Every year on an aver
age about 200 hitherto unknown reefs and
rocks and other dangers to navigation are
discovered and must 10 noted on many |
maps.
1T is the business of the geographer to |
take III this immense volume of new in |
formation and use 1t with critical care. |
He can tell wishin narrow limits what |
degree OF oredence 10 to be givsn to the |
work of each explorer and he rejects "a |
II eat deal Of Information which does not |
appear to him to lie based upon sufficiently |
careful or competent research"
When the French man Bissy made the |
large map of Africa, to which he devoted |
4 great deal of his time for eight years, |
be used as his sources Of information |
nearly !, 500 route maps and other maps |
of the continent. IL took a great deal OF
lime to si;t from this enormous mass of |