Abstract Cartography plays an instrumental role as an important source of information from a historical and geographical perspective. This paper examines the development of cartography and its significance in the study of geography. The paper also looks at how maps are playing a bigger role in our lives today, in the forms of weather maps and sattelite photography.
From the Paper "With the expansion of education in the 19th century, more and more people were exposed to the use of maps. Maps became were fast becoming common but it was not until much later that they were found to be the best tool for getting around in unknown areas. Its odd that maps should not have been more common early on since they always had a place in the educational system and in the Bible. The apostles appeared to have had knowledge of maps and so did the ancient kingdoms of Israel.
Maps seemed to have had a place in most of history as a form of symbolization to help communicate a sense of a place. Medieval and classical maps were revolutionized during the colonial periods as exploration flourished. Even now, technological advances are still creating a revolution that is changing the mapmaking process."
This paper reviews and analyzes Simon Winchester's biography, "The Map that Changed the World," which describes how William Smith indelibly changed the face of geological science.
Abstract The writer of this paper examines the life and accomplishments of William Smith, the English geologist credited for creating the first geological map. This paper examines how Smith's maps shifted public perception regarding the creation of the universe. This paper reviews Simon Winchester's biography, "The Map that Changed the World," which summarizes Smith's life, his achievements and the impacts made on the scientific community due to his research. Smith's early work with canal digging companies and within the mining industry enabled him to become more aware of what lie beneath the surface of the land. This paper focuses on Smith's fascination with the earth, rocks and fossils, which led to the creation of his first geological map of Bath. Influenced by other cartography and on extant atlases, Smith devised special colorization systems for his geological maps, which are discussed in this paper. This paper also examines Smith's longing for more recognition than he was afforded during his lifetime. While Smith's maps were published during his lifetime, what should have been the high point of his life marked the beginning of a downward spiral, when many of his personal and professional relationships fell apart. This paper examines why centuries after his death, geologists still pay homage to William Smith, the father of modern geology.
From the Paper "His early work with canal digging companies and within the mining industry enabled William Smith to become more aware of what lie beneath the surface of the land. There could be no better situation for a man who loved geology in the eighteenth century than being paid to dig deep under the ground. Thus, his professional work offered him a private pleasure and a convenient means by which to formulate, develop, and prove his theories. On his own, while he traveled as a surveyor for the Somerset Coal Canal Company, Smith observed how sedimentary layers of rock were arranged in patterns across the land. Somerset Coal Canal Company was not so much interested in the scientific implications for Smith's findings as in their financial implications. For instance, when he was first hired, Smith noticed how English villages rest on top of "a score of complex, broken, twisted, and contorted seams of coal." For Smith, his work meant unlocking some of the earth's deepest secrets."
Abstract This paper includes a simple identification of nations from the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. Twenty-six nations are listed alongside a map of the region. The paper further discusses some of the lasting effects of Spanish and Portuguese colonialism on this region, including culture, economics, and politics.
From the Paper "By the early 1500s, both Spain and Portugal had well-established colonies throughout this area of the world. Spain's influence spread throughout all three sub-regions, while Portugal's influence was localized primarily in Brazil (Kicza, 2003)."
Abstract This paper looks at Alice Major's "Maps" and at how this brief poem captures some fascinating items about Canada and about Canadian society as it presently stands. It examines the poem's focus upon the evolution of cartography within the country over time and its use of vivid imagery. It also looks at how the poem focuses upon the evolution of an embryonic child which touches upon two things: the controversial phenomenon of Canada being "discovered" by Caucasian usurpers arriving from abroad, and the fact that Canada is a nation wherein the social compass has shifted dramatically in recent decades.
From the Paper "Alice Major's poem, "Maps," is really a commentary on Canada and on what Canada has evolved into. For instance, passages like, "What was peninsula on ancient charts/becomes island. Small continents swell/large extrusions dwindle. Until it emerges - the familiar shape of a world" (Major, lines 10-14). In a very real sense, the history of Canada is the history of a land creating its own "map" out of the rough-hewn terrain that, really, belonged to someone else (Miquelon, 2004). In that sense, what the maps of this country have always presented is the evolving vision of a land as that land presents itself to "white" settlers who are merely among the latest guests in a land that is not (was not) their land. Thus, Major's poem, "Maps," is also a poem about epistemology and about the manner in which the things we learn are given to us through lens crafted by someone else. "
Abstract This essay examines the importance of learning in the Arab world with specific reference to Portugal during the early modern period. It examines how this nation was empowered by its adaptation of Arabic mathematics and Arab navigational and naval technology. Arab knowledge of cartography and navigation, from which all European nations borrowed heavily, enabled Portugal to forge ahead in the drive to seek colonies and expand Portugal's sphere of trade.
From the paper:
?In the current political climate, it has become easy to forget the past. It has become easy to forget how, many hundreds of years ago the Arab world was not seen as a place of darkness, of anti-modernist and anti-technological sentiments. Rather Islam was seen as a beacon of light for the West, providing important mathematical and navigational knowledge that enabled Europeans to make exploratory forays into what became the New World. The very numbers that paginate this particular document are ?Arabic Numerals,? an improvement on the cumbersome and often confusing system of Roman numerals.?
Tags: anti-modernist, and, anti-technological, sentiments, current, political, climate, John, III, islam
Abstract This paper examines how the fifteenth century represents a zenith in global exploration and discovery and perhaps harbours the most dramatic explosion of geographical possibility of any age. It looks at how Christopher Columbus? discovery of the New World, Vasco da Gama's rounding of the Cape of Good Hope and Sebastien del Cano's circumnavigation of the globe were all significant steps in the localisation of the fifteenth century world.
From the Paper "The origins of European expansion are seen by many to lie in the capture by the Portuguese of the Moroccan city of Ceuta in 1415 . This foothold on African soil created the potential for European expansion, begun with the Portuguese advancement down the west coast of Africa and ultimately realised in 1498 with Vasco da Gama's rounding of the Cape of Good Hope. The capture of Ceuta is certainly significant in the context of this argument as it helped, in no small part, stimulate the mind of the fifteenth century western European individual towards new ideas of travel, exploration and discovery. However, the increase in physical possibility in the fifteenth century stems not solely from one event, but from a number of ideas and innovations formulated in part over a much longer period."
Abstract This paper explains that GIS encompasses both the digital and geographical techniques involved in the systems used for the processing and dissemination of geographic information. GIS may be defined as an automated system that allows the creation, editing, studying, analyzing and displaying spatially referenced data. It further examines how GIS has the capacity to manipulate several different spatial datasets at the same time. The writer concludes that GIS plays a significant role in resource planning and other planned activities with reference to the geographical aspects of an activity.
From the Paper "GIS makes use of both the traditional disciplines as well as technology. It is a technology that makes use of a wide variety of disciplines and as such may be considered an enabling technology. Geography is a traditional discipline and is the science of comprehending the world and man's place on it and is a constituent of GIS. Geography has made use of spatial analysis for a very long time and this has often been done in the manual form that forms the starting blocks of spatial research and analysis. Cartography is the display of spatial information and is another constituent of GIS. Cartography happens to be the predominant source of data for input to GIS either digitized or scanned. Designing and creating maps forms a significant component in what is the output function of GIS, which gives rise to the popular myth that production of maps is the function of GIS. (What is a GIS and What Does It Do?)"
Abstract The following paper looks at the impact of European colonialism upon its own self-identity and upon its place in the world by reviewing a text entitled, :Modernity: An Introduction to Modern Societies.: While the reading glosses over the impact of the Europeans upon the indigenous peoples they were displacing, it does offer some interesting insights into how overseas adventurism changed European cartography and self-identification.
From the Paper "As much as Western imperial powers may wish otherwise, there can be little doubt that colonialism inflicted great harm upon many indigenous peoples the world over. Of all the many depredations that can be laid at the feet of colonial activity, one of the most pernicious was - and remains - population displacement. Among other things, this paper will examine the extent to which population displacement is treated in Modernity: an Introduction to Modern Societies. As will soon become evident, the paper refers to the issue of population displacement only obliquely while focusing far more upon the impact of Western expansion and colonialism upon western self-identity. "
Abstract This paper explains that, although global positioning systems provide cartographers with the ability to pinpoint topographical features and today the ability to express relief and contours on modern maps is commonplace, it was not always this easy. The author points out that, while the history of map-making is truly ancient, the ability to communicate accurately relief features on maps began in Italy during the 15th century. The paper concludes that today's cartographer enjoys the benefits of centuries of research into different ways of communicating three-dimensional features on two-dimensional planes and that the introduction of powerful three-dimensional computer-based visualization applications represents a true milestone in cartography history. The paper includes quotations and illustrations.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Rationale in Support of Study
Previous Research
Objective of the Study
Organization of the Study
Background of the Study of Relief Representation
Theoretical Framework
Methodology
Study Design
Theoretical Basis
Research Strategy Employed
Execution of the Study of Relief Representation
Results and Analysis of Relief Representation Techniques
Results
Analysis
Summary and Conclusions
Summary
Conclusions
Limitations of the Study
Recommendation for Future Research
From the Paper "According to Kirschenbauer and Buchroithner (2001), although these three-dimensional techniques provide the user with a decent overall impression of the represented relief, the transmission of detailed information and precise height data as it is rendered by contour lines is not simplified to any significant degree. This is because any of the older (which is to say a couple of years) present detailed landforms with techniques that do not provide a truly comprehensive picture yet. However, these authors emphasize that new technological innovations are making strides in this direction every day."
Abstract This paper reviews and analyzes the early maps of the Americas, the men who created them, the institutions that produced and promoted them based on data and rough maps brought back to Europe by explorers, and the purposes - especially their communicative capabilities - they served in terms of the development of colonial properties for Spain, England, and Portugal among other European nations.
Outline:
Thesis Statement
Introduction: Incomplete Communication in Some Maps
Literature Review: History of Maps and the Age of Discovery
From the Paper "Certainly the leaders in Portugal and Spain, among the most active early exploring nations, had volumes of logs, notes, journals and other historical records of discoveries made by their intrepid sailors. But, according to Monica L. Smith, writing in Annals of the Association of American Geographers (Smith, 2005), "...the visual stimulus of a map may be more powerful than the scholarly text that accompanies it." Smith explains. Indeed, by providing a visual image "the map gives another dimension to the image it represents," Smith states in her article, "and restricts, or even overtakes, the freedom of its reader to create an image of his own." There are implications of "linguistics" within the creation of a map, Smith asserts, through the process of the cartographer's "consciously created and manipulated" images. But Smith, a professor of anthropology at UCLA, believes while ancient maps do communicate dimensions that are extremely useful to historians, "the understanding of maps as interpretive documents" has had little or no affect on portrayals of the "premodern past." That is due to the fact that scholarly illustrations of historic lands and cultures "tend to be of the absolutist variety." Smith believes the use of maps in textbooks too often communicate a narrow and shallow picture of early cultural groups. One map in a text "implies that a state or empire was always growing toward its eventual borders in a kind of long-term manifest destiny."
