Miles, kilometers, leagues and chains – you may encounter any of these measurements of distance in a map scale. When our collections cover the entire world and span 700 years of history, you’d expect to find a variety of units used in different places over time. This American map of the Ouachita River in Louisiana from 1804 uses a scale of miles:
This French map of New Orleans uses a scale of toises, a unit of measurement which varied over time but was likely around two meters at the time this map was published in 1764. The term toise comes from the Latin phrase tensa brachia, which means “outstretched arms.”
This 1627 map of Greece and western Turkey includes a four-part scale bar in its lower right, containing scales of four units: “Germanian miles,” French miles, Italian miles, and furlongs. The map was published in John Speed’s atlas A prospect of the most famovs parts of the vvorld; printed in London, it would have been intended for a wide audience.
Modern maps typically express scale as a representative fraction. This topographic map of Ethiopia contains multiple sheets, each mapped at a uniform scale of 1:500,000, indicating that one unit of measurement on the map represents 500,000 units on the land’s surface. Representative fractions are unit-neutral; one inch of the map corresponds to 500,000 inches on the ground, and one pixel on the map corresponds to 500,000 pixel-widths of land.
With such a wide variety of units appearing on maps in the Geography and Map Division collections, you would think that we’ve seen it all. However, I was still surprised when I came across this map of Central Asia. The map includes two scale bars, with units common on maps at the time: English statutory miles, and Russian versts. But hovering above the scale bar, like an unexpected, angular island in the Indian Ocean, are Indiana and Ohio:
This map of Central Asia was published by George Woolworth and Charles B. Colton in 1885. George and Charles were the sons and business partners of Joseph Hutchins Colton, a prolific cartographer and map publisher whose company operated throughout much of the 19th century. Based in New York, the Colton company dominated American map publishing during its day, producing maps of US states and regions; the country as a whole; thematic maps, including hundreds of railroad maps; and atlases.
Colton was a pedestrian publisher of maps for general consumption, and their maps were likely among the first maps of far-off countries and regions – like Central Asia – available to Americans in the 1800s. The small map of the familiar territories of Indiana and Ohio not only provides a sense of scale, it served to improve the geographical knowledge of the average American by relating distant parts of the world to America’s conceptual heartland.
Colton utilized the same technique of geographical comparison in a collaboration with Nelson and Phillips, a publisher of Christian religious books. In 1874, their Sunday School Department issued a massive 8-sheet wall map of Palestine, drawn by G.W. and C.B. Colton & Co., which served as a reference map to numerous place names mentioned in the Bible. One sheet included this diagram comparing Palestine as shown in the full map to both Illinois and several states of New England, “for the purpose of giving a correct idea of its very limited area.”
The Coltons weren’t alone in this sort of areal comparison. Here, the Wells Missionary Map Company demonstrates the area of Africa by dividing it into sections equal in area to the United States and Alaska, British North America, Mexico, and Europe.
If there are other examples of unorthodox scales in the Geography and Map Division collections (maybe someone has measured the Alps in units of elephants?), I unfortunately haven’t run across them. But when our stacks are the length of the Washington Monument, they surely hold untold wonders of creative cartography.
Comments
Another great commentary by Ms. Raines. Fascinating.