Brussels International
Map Collectors' Circle
By Simon Winchester. London: Penguin Books, 2002. 358 pages, 19.5 x 12.5 cm, paper back. Price GBP 6.99. No ISBN @@@. To order: Penguin Books, 80, The Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England; http://www.penguin.com
This is not a book about historical maps, but about one single geological map: the first one in the world.
During my stay in Iceland at the IMCoS convention in 2000 I was struck by the 19th century map by Björn Gunnlaugsson. Here was a typical 19th century scientific amateur who — during many summers — walked through this beautiful island and designed single handedly the first detailed map of Iceland. This map (41,4 x 54,3 cm) is a beauty [very likely either a fore-runner or derivative of the 4-sheet map mentioned on p. 7]. Much scientific work has been realised during that century by lonely persons who pursued stubbornly what they believed in.
For the same kind of work, we would use today an arsenal of scientific instruments as computers, satellites, etc. and hundreds of people around the world would feed our machines with the necessary information.
Here was one man at work.
For indeed the author tells the story of William Smith's life and life-work, the first geological map of England. His map is dated 1815 and can be compared in this book with the modern geological map of England by the British Geological Survey, dated 2001. The similarities are striking and prove the outstanding work Smith performed during his twenty-years of walking the country.
The reader who wants to know how a cartographer designs the unseen underground by looking at the surrounding surface will be well served. It is imperative that this same reader would need a vivid interest in rocks, strata and basic geology.
In his book the author blends Smith's rather unhappy private life with his wanderings through rocks, fossils and layers. By introducing the nineteen chapter headings with a small drawing of Jurassic ammonites classified as found in the chronological strata, he makes it clear that the accent of his writing is on geological thinking.
Smith's life was not a happy one. His wife went mad and he got ruined and cheated by jealous colleagues. Only at the end of his life did his map gain national recognition and he became considered as the father of geology.
Smith was a workaholic who made a living by studying terrains for water drainage and building canals. He lived in an era of canal mania when owners, whose land exposed coal at the surface, wanted to build a canal for cheap transport. This permitted Smith to see what lay underneath the surface. He also studied fossils and the rock layers where he found them, in order to date the strata. The author gives a fairly good modern picture of the geological processes that shaped the English landscape.
Smith did not have this information but had intuition and insight. He went down the coal pits and looked at the walls of the shaft where he saw the successive layers of rocks. He deduced theories from what he saw; he used logic and stood by his ideas. He projected his findings on a single map. It almost ruined him, but in the end he got the reward of public admiration.
by Eric Leenders