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Posted by: Julie Stoner
If you were asked the location of the furthest point from the center of the Earth, you would likely be inclined to state the summit of Mount Everest as an obvious choice. Looking at the 1862 pictorial map below would seem to confirm that it would be in the Himalayan Mountains of Asia. Fascinatingly, due …
Posted in: Exploration, Series: Extremities of the Earth
Posted by: Cynthia Smith
Hy-Brasil never existed, however, it was often shown on maps as a very small island west of Ireland. The name Hy-Brasil originated from Celtic mythology. According to Irish folklore an island named Hy-Brasil was visible from the west coast of Ireland for only one day every seven years, the rest of the time it was …
Posted in: 16th century cartography, 17th century cartography, 18th century cartography, Exploration
Posted by: Cynthia Smith
The lunar maps shown in this post were created long before satellite images became available. The topography is highly detailed and the historical backgrounds of the astronomers who created them are compelling. The first working telescope was built in the Netherlands in 1608. British astronomer Thomas Harriot (1560-1621) made the first recorded sketches of the …
Posted in: Celestial Mapping, Exploration
Posted by: Cynthia Smith
The title of this post does not refer to the science fiction novel of the same name by Jules Verne. It refers to the phantom island Frisland which was commonly shown on maps of the North Atlantic Ocean during the 16th and 17th centuries. Frisland never existed, however, cartographers believed that the island was real …
Posted in: 16th century cartography, 17th century cartography, 18th century cartography, Exploration
Posted by: Ed Redmond
The collections of the Library of Congress include thirteen early nautical or portolan charts published between 1320 and 1734. Cartographic historians and map librarians are familiar with these early charts. But what, exactly, is a “portolan” chart? This post will attempt to address a few of the basic ideas revolving around these early nautical charts. …
Posted in: Exploration
Posted by: Julie Stoner
Spewing lava and gas from deep within the earth, volcanoes are one of nature’s most explosive natural features. Thousands of volcanoes dot the planet but only about 1,500 are considered active, meaning they have erupted at some point in the last 10,000 years. The largest of these active volcanoes in both mass and volume is …
Posted in: Exploration, Series: Extremities of the Earth
Posted by: Julie Stoner
In Part 1 of this post, we discussed the Amazon River in South America as a contender for the title of the longest river on Earth. While arguments have been made by some cartographers that the Amazon should be given this distinction, it is traditionally held by most that the longest river in the world …
Posted in: Exploration, Series: Extremities of the Earth
Posted by: Julie Stoner
The Amazon or the Nile? The debate over which deserves the title of longest river is centuries old. Determining the world’s longest river is not a simple matter of using a measuring tape to find the distance! In this new post in our Extremities of the Earth series, we will explore these two mighty waterways …
Posted in: Exploration, Series: Extremities of the Earth
Posted by: Julie Stoner
In the previous post of this series, the military installation of Alert in Nunavut, Canada was named the northernmost permanently inhabited point. While this is indeed true, it is only accessible to assigned military personnel. For the adventurers out there, we will have to content ourselves with visiting or living on the island of Spitsbergen, …
Posted in: Exploration, Series: Extremities of the Earth