Musings on maps

Rather than sitting down with a good book, many travelers enjoy a good map.

There's something deeply satisfying about a map. Apart from helping people figure out where they are and where they're going, a map can offer insights that help bring a place to life. Maps can provide the inspiration for travel dreams, as well as introduce different points of view that can be shared with other people and other generations.

No one knows where or when the first maps were made; most probably the notion evolved among many peoples as a way to understand their immediate environs. Consider Eratosthenes, a scholar who lived in Egypt two centuries before Christ. Using logic, a deep well and a rudimentary map of his country, he was able to accurately calculate the circumference of the Earth.

Because maps tended to be made on fragile materials, few truly ancient ones survive. Those that do are works of wonder and beauty created by people who are regarded with the same reverence as master artists.

For modern travelers who love fine and rare things, collecting antique maps can be an expensive passion. Here's one place to pursue that passion for free:

The Geography and Map reading room at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., may contain the most comprehensive collection of old maps anywhere, with more than 4.5 million maps, atlases and globes.

The main reading room contains an impressive selection of standard topography maps, reference books and road maps, but the really good stuff is in the back. This area is off limits to the public, but if you know what you want to see, the librarians will be glad to bring out map wonders of the ages for your personal inspection

Many of these maps are very old: animal skin charts used by 14th-century mariners to navigate the Mediterranean; maps detailing land ownership in medieval Europe; city plans from Colonial America as early as 1544. The collection of more than 300 globes includes early celestial models, as well as several by James Wilson, America's first globe maker.

The map reading room is located in the James Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave. It's open weekdays 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Bring a photo ID, such as a driver's license, to leave on deposit with the librarians For information 202-707-6277 or http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/phillips

Historic road maps

Highway maps are another segment of historical cartography.

Few developments have had more impact on the 20th-century than the automobile. The roads built to support vehicular travel continue to alter the landscape of America. Highway maps record that evolution.

At the dawn of the 20th-century, the U.S. created an extensive network of railroads, but a system of inter-city roads was sorely lacking. Bicyclists were the first significant group to lobby for better routes between cities, but the growing population of automobile owners added clout to the case.

Since early routes had neither name nor number, long distance motorists traveled with Automobile Blue Books, which were essentially detailed lists of driving directions that literally described every bend and bump in the road.

In the early 1920s, as named routes such as the Lincoln Highway, Dixie Highway and Old Spanish Trail were developed and marked with color-coded poles, maps were drawn to provide auto club members with directions.

Gradually, officially designated state routes began to merge into rudimentary highway systems. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation issued its first road map in 1925.

Commercial publishers like Rand McNally began to print maps for individual states. It didn't take long for the big oil companies to realize these colorful maps were great promotional items, and they began distributing them for free. The elaborate cover art of these oil company maps captured 50 years of American culture. By the time Exxon issued the last free map in the mid-1980s, oil companies had given away more than 5 billion maps.

Since then, highway maps are again the domain of commercial publishers.

For highway information on the information highway, check the Web site of the Road Map Collectors of America. The RMCA is also holding its fifth annual Map Collectors meet next weekend in Hammond, Ind.

Getting off road

If you want a map to get off road, the options are more limited.

For serious hikers, maps based on the U.S. Geological Survey are still the primary choice.

They are the result of more than a century of painstaking effort. The original purpose of the survey, which began in 1879, was to map the nation's water and mineral resources. But the real effort started after World War II, when the survey set out to map the entire nation to a scale of one to 24,000, or about two1/2 inches to the mile.

Completed in 1988, the survey is a triumph of precision. Enhanced by aerial photography and satellite imagery, it consists of more than 70,000 individual topographical maps. They reveal every significant detail on the ground within an accuracy of several feet.

Based on the survey, the Department of the Interior also publishes maps on smaller scales, at four, eight, and 16 miles to the inch. It has charts of more than 100 national parks, and maps of Antarctica, the moon, and several planets.

USGS maps themselves aren't expensive; depending on the scale, individual sheets cost $4 or $8. You can buy them from map sellers or one of the Survey's public offices. They also can be ordered by phone, fax or the World Wide Web.

For information on USGS Survey Maps call 1-888-ASK-USGS (275 8747) or www.usgs.gov.

In the past decade, the Internet and digital imagery have taken maps in a whole new direction and created a host of online resources. They include:

Perry-Casteneda Library Map Collection (http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/Map_collection.html) This map collection from the University of Texas at Austin holds more than 230,000 maps covering every area of the world.

Other commercial sites:

www.mapquest.com
www.randmcnally.com
www.maplink.com
www.missingmaps.com
www.omnimap.com