Evening star., 1936-08-02
BY JESSIE FAINT EVANS.

JESS1E
Are you a lover of maps, to whom
every new one Is challenge and who
must, under any and all circumstances,
draw map of everything within your
province? Or are you one of those
folk whose acquaintance with maps is
limited to those in your children's S
Biographies, chance ones which you
encounter on the library walls Of map
minded friends or the road maps,
which are supplied for your pros
pective vacations and which you do
not particularly enjoy perusing?
Whatever may be your attitude toward
maps, betake yourself to the division
of maps in the Library of Congress if
you would open up for yourself new
worlds of interest and acquaint your
self with far horizons of which YOU
have barely dreamed.
There, in one of the worlds greatest
collections of maps, you can learn at
first hand of the romance of old maps
and their allure from earliest time,
or see for yourself the wonderful
purposes served by and the uses to
which maps of every kind are put in
our day.
When the first catalogue Of the
Library of Congress was printed in
1902, two years after the library had
been established in one room at the
Capitol, it recorded six aliases and
seven maps.
Fires Ravage Collections.
After the library was destroyed by
fire in 1914, when the British burned
the Capitol, it was re-established by
the purchase of the library of Thomas
jefferson, numbering 6,487 volumes.
Suffering still another disastrous fire
in 1851, with the loss of approxi-
mately $4,000 volumes, the Library of
Congress did not get of to an espe-
cially good running start in either its
collection Of books or maps until 1846,
when the copyright law required the
deposit Of one copy in the Library of
Congress.
Since 1870 the law required the
deposit Of two copies of such publica-
tions as are copyrighted In the United
States.
In 1897, when the Library was
moved from the Capitol across the
plaza to its present building, eSpe-
cially designed for it by the great
architects of its day, there were ap-
proximately ZOO maps to form the
nucleus of its present staggering ag-
gregation.
Today there are 1,368,686 maps and
aliases, not including the printed ma
terial concerning them in books and
pamphlets, in the Division of Maps
alone. Stored elsewhere than in the
division are 2,208 Chinese gazeteers,
666 general works on Chinese geog-
raphy, 304 Japanese ga2eteers, maps
and geographical works. Perhaps one
of the greatest needs Of the Library
of Congress Is a more adequate map
catalogue, so that this rich store
house of material may be made more
readily available.
The present collection Of maps in
the Library Is one Of the most i'm
portant in the United States and is
exceeded in number only by that Of
the War College. The maps there,
naturally, are mainly military in
character.
Used to Settle Boundaries.
The aggregation Of historical maps
and aliases in the division probably
Is the largest and most valuable on
the American continent. Because of
this, its resources have been used in
such ong-drawn-out boundary dis
puteS as those between Canada and
Labrador, Guatemala and Honduras
and Venezuela and British Guiana.
The Division Of Maps also has been
used in the settlement of boundary
questions between our own States
and concerning our dominions. No
table among these has been its serv-
ice in the Great Lakes level case and
the Delaware-New Jersey, Michigan
Wisconsin and Minnesota Wisconsin
boundary controversies, as well as
with the Palmas Island arbitration.
In several of these cases, the pres
ent chief of the Division of Maps,
Col Lawrence Martin, has sat as an
expert.
Still pending is the District Of
Columbia Virginia dispute concerning
the jurisdiction of Columbia Island,
with the Division of Maps and its
experts being pressed into service by
both interested parties. Ever since 1t
was ceded back to Virginia with that
portion Of the original 10 miles square,
which was her original contribution
to the seat of the National Capital, 1t
has been administered and taxed by
the State Of Virginia.
Unconsciously, after the railroad
bridge was built across it at the time
ground for the District Of Columbia,
its north end was filled in, so that the
back of Columbia Island has now
almost grown fast to the Virginia
mainland. Its major portion is used
as the Experimental Farm of the De-
partment of Agriculture. Perhaps the
maps in the custody of the Library Of
Congress will be the determining fac
tors in deciding into whose custody it
shall finally be committed.
Possibly the heaviest demand upon
the division was made during the ar
bitration between the Kingdom Of the
Netherlands and the United States as
to the possession Of one Of the tiniest
islands in the world, Palmas Island,
of the Philippines. Dating back to