dslreports logo
 
    All Forums Hot Topics Gallery
spc
Search similar:


uniqs
9599

John K
@conquesthousing.com

John K to Xstar_Lumini

Anon

to Xstar_Lumini

Re: How Did They Mapped The Continents 500 Years Ago?

quote:
Sorry I don't believe that map is from the 1800's, gotta give me more evidence than that link.

Yes, sir, I did suggest how you can see other examples in that very same post:
quote:
I'm sure a Google image search would yield other examples of accurate 19th Century (and earlier) maps.

The link I gave you to the one of Africa was an example, one of many. Click on the below link and you'll see quite a few other maps from the 19th Century.

»www.google.com/images?q= ··· PZh7mdCg

I can understand your skepticism somewhat, but maybe look at it this way: for travel and trade to take place, accurate maps are a -must.- Ships have to get to port before their fuel and provisions run out, and moving goods and people over the surface of the earth as quickly and safely as possible was just as big a concern in the 19th Century (and earlier) as it is today. This is where maps and charts come in.

If Google Images isn't enough, there are plenty of antique dealers who specialize in old maps and atlases. If you want to put your mind at rest once and for all, perhaps you could pay one of them a visit and examine their old maps with your own eyes to confirm their authenticity?

Better yet, maybe there's an example or two currently residing in your own attic?

Or perhaps someone in the forum can suggest a book similar to The Day the Universe Changed, but dedicated to cartography from ancient times through the present day? Maybe the cartographical world has its own version of James Burke who is good at explaining things and making Connections.
nonymous (banned)
join:2003-09-08
Glendale, AZ

nonymous (banned) to Xstar_Lumini

Member

to Xstar_Lumini
said by Xstar_Lumini:

said by John K :

Anyway, here's a 19th Century map of Africa that compares favorably to a 21st Century one:

»migrationstoriesofnigeri ··· ica3.jpg

Sorry I don't believe that map is from the 1800's, gotta give me more evidence than that link. Nobody has yet told me how an ancient cartographer would know what exact shape of the coast of Africa for example, how could they tell twists and turns that were hundreds of miles long? It's obvious they couldn't see the next Somalia's elbow turn.

Oh and if cartographers could discern a twist in a contitent's shoreline how come they couldn't notice that the Earth was curved?

You sound like some highly educated people in my college classes. Very good depth of knowledge on one subject but lacking in breadth of knowledge.
Expand your moderator at work

shaner
Premium Member
join:2000-10-04
Calgary, AB

shaner to Xstar_Lumini

Premium Member

to Xstar_Lumini

Re: How Did They Mapped The Continents 500 Years Ago?

Also know that the oldest form of navigation is still in use today. Except today, computers do the math for us instead of us having to plot things on a map or chart.

Dead Reckoning has been a powerful navigation tool for centuries. It helped navigators figure out where they were, and how far it was to their destination based on knowing where they've been. Sounds pretty logical, no?

»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De ··· eckoning

So, let's say you're surveying the coast of Africa. Remember, your sole purpose is to MAP the continent. Now, it might take you 6 months to do just the Gulf of Guinea, for example, but you would have a crew on board whose sole purpose was to take readings, measurements, and plot those things on a chart. Then, cartographers would take your charts and maps, and put them together with other mapping expeditions to get a bigger picture of the whole elephant.
PX Eliezer704
Premium Member
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River

PX Eliezer704 to John K

Premium Member

to John K
said by John K :


Or perhaps someone in the forum can suggest a book similar to The Day the Universe Changed, but dedicated to cartography from ancient times through the present day? Maybe the cartographical world has its own version of James Burke who is good at explaining things and making Connections.

New Worlds:
Maps from the Age of Discovery

»www.amazon.com/New-World ··· 05204809

Actually, at Amazon's price, this is a HUGE BARGAIN! Excellent book, many fine map reproductions.

And yes, the maps from long ago are very impressive.

carpetshark3
Premium Member
join:2004-02-12
Idledale, CO

carpetshark3 to PX Eliezer704

Premium Member

to PX Eliezer704
Is that the short story when a crew member had to teach the rest how to use an abacus?
Once geometry and trig functions were working, almost everything could be measured. The last thing was longitude at sea, and that depended on a working clock.
Hipparchus had the distance to the moon, and even the precession of the equinoxes. He incorporated numerical data from observations into geometrical data. This is around 150 BCE.

james16
join:2001-02-26

james16 to John K

Member

to John K
said by John K :

Anyway, here's a 19th Century map of Africa that compares favorably to a 21st Century one:

»migrationstoriesofnigeri ··· ica3.jpg

Actually, what you have there is a modern map of what Africa looked like in the 19th century...
ctggzg
Premium Member
join:2005-02-11
USA

ctggzg to wapu

Premium Member

to wapu
said by wapu:

I would contend that as a percentage there are just as many dumb people today as there were back then.

As of 2008 it was about 92% of Americans.
PX Eliezer704
Premium Member
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River

PX Eliezer704 to carpetshark3

Premium Member

to carpetshark3
said by carpetshark3:

Is that the short story when a crew member had to teach the rest how to use an abacus?

No, the story is literally about the re-discovery of arithmetic.

Humanity had become so dependent on computers/calculators that they thought that it was impossible to do any computation without a computer.

Nine times seven, thought Shuman with deep satisfaction, is sixty-three, and I don't need a computer to tell me so. The computer is in my own head.

And it was amazing the feeling of power that it gave him.


»downlode.org/Etext/power.html

Pretty good future-seeing for a story from 1958.
severach
join:2002-09-12
Jackson, MI

severach to PX Eliezer704

Member

to PX Eliezer704
said by PX Eliezer704:

Rather, there was disagreement as to the true circumference of the earth.

Many people thought that Columbus was underestimating the distance between Europe and the "Indies" which in fact he was!

Why would that be a problem? The circumference of the Earth was pretty well known for a long time.

Wikipedia: Eratosthenes' measurement of the earth's circumference

John K
@conquesthousing.com

John K to james16

Anon

to james16
quote:
Actually, what you have there is a modern map of what Africa looked like in the 19th century...

What leads you to conclude that the map I linked to was produced in the 20th/21st Century rather than the 19th?

james16
join:2001-02-26

james16

Member

Because it follows modern conventions and would have been impossible to replicate using period printing presses. Furthermore there is no evidence to support your theory that it dates from that period in time. Would be nice if the resolution was high enough to make out the copyright date, or even the company that made the map.

This is an example of what 19th century maps looked like:
»www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/ ··· 1890.jpg

Note that it contains identical information and detail, but is simply presented in a different format. So your point about the information available still stands, it was simply the ability to convert the information into an easily replicated document that was lacking.

John K
@conquesthousing.com

John K

Anon

quote:
Because it follows modern conventions

Could you please be more specific about these "modern conventions" you speak of? Because I have no idea what you're referring to there.

Visible copyright dates aside, how do you distinguish mid-late 19th Century maps from early 20th Century ones? If you have a way to easily tell them apart, please share it with us, as I really do want to know what it is in order to expand my own knowledge.
quote:
and would have been impossible to replicate using period printing presses.

Please elaborate. I'm not clear on why that map:

»migrationstoriesofnigeri ··· ica3.jpg

would have been impossible to produce on 19th Century printing presses; color printing was available in the 19th Century as well as the 20th (something that a Google image search will confirm). What specific elements are present that mark it exclusively as a 20th Century map capable of only being produced on 20th Century presses?
quote:
Furthermore there is no evidence to support your theory that it dates from that period in time. Would be nice if the resolution was high enough to make out the copyright date, or even the company that made the map.

Well, here's one that is indisputably from the 19th Century, replete with an 1852 copyright date in the lower left-hand corner:

»migrationstoriesofnigeri ··· rica.jpg

Can you school us on how it differs materially from the one I offered up earlier? Sure, the interior is different, but the same "modern conventions" that were present in the map I linked to earlier seem to be present in this mid-19th Century one, too. I am not a cartographer by trade, and I openly admit that, so maybe you are seeing key differences in these maps that I am not.

Unfortunately, telling me about the earlier map following "modern conventions" and being "impossible to replicate" on 19th Century presses doesn't assist me very much in knowing what to look for to prevent me from making the same mistake again (assuming I was mistaken in the first place).

I would like to know more about -how- I was mistaken for future reference. Fair dinkum?
quote:
This is an example of what 19th century maps looked like:
»www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historic···1890.jpg

Right: the example you've furnished there is from 1890. I get that.

What I'm not clear on is how it is possible to tell a map produced in 1890 from one produced in 1910. I'm not aware of any radical change in cartographical practices that came about at the turn of the 20th Century, but maybe you are. Could you please share them with us so we are all the wiser for it?

(Don't let the dunce cap and the vacant stare fool you, I'm here to learn, too.)

carpetshark3
Premium Member
join:2004-02-12
Idledale, CO

carpetshark3

Premium Member

You might be able to tell by analysis of ink and paper.
cs
Austinloop
join:2001-08-19
Austin, TX

Austinloop to McSummation

Member

to McSummation
said by McSummation:

You can't do it because you're not a trained naval navigator/surveyor.

Actually, an Air Force navigator can also do a pretty decent position plotting using a sextant and compass.

Back in the day, I was an EWO on a B-52H and during an Operational Readiness Inspection, we were required to fly an approximately 450 nautical mile dog leg course. At the end of the dog leg course, we were scored as being .25 miles off of the desired finish point.

I was the one shooting the sextant, 3 star fixes every 15 to 20 minutes.

John K
@conquesthousing.com

John K to carpetshark3

Anon

to carpetshark3
quote:
Is that the short story when a crew member had to teach the rest how to use an abacus?

I think I read "The Feeling of Power" long ago.

I believe the particular story you're thinking of is "Into the Comet," by Arthur C. Clarke, where a spacecraft's computer malfunctions and....well, you can probably guess the rest.

(Looked for the story online, but no luck, sorry.)

james16
join:2001-02-26

james16 to John K

Member

to John K
You're the one claiming your map is from 1890 and "compares favorably" to modern maps (ie looks the same as, and it does look the same as modern maps because it is one) yet you furnish zero proof that the map is actually from the period you claim.

You're going on about 1890 vs 1910 but you're just setting up some bullshit strawman argument now. I'm talking modern vs historical maps, not historical vs historical.

If you want to know how to tell the difference, just compare it to other maps from the period and notice how it looks nothing like any of them.

John K
@conquesthousing.com

John K

Anon

quote:
You're the one claiming your map is from 1890

No, I -never- said that the original map I linked to was specifically from 1890. I said it was from "the 19th Century." Please go back and read what I wrote.

The map that -you- linked to in a later post of your own is dated 1890, if that's what this confusion is about.
quote:
and "compares favorably" to modern maps (ie looks the same as, and it does look the same as modern maps because it is one) yet you furnish zero proof that the map is actually from the period you claim.

I trust this link is will be sufficient proof that the map dates from the 19th Century:

»www.snapfish.com/Life/fe ··· 50692105

(It dates the map from January, 1880.)
quote:
You're going on about 1890 vs 1910 but you're just setting up some bullshit strawman argument now. I'm talking modern vs historical maps, not historical vs historical.

Sorry, but that simply isn't true.

What I wrote is still there: I asked you, point blank, how to differentiate between a map produced in 1890 (a 19th Century map) vs. one produced in 1910 (a 20th Century one). If you can't tell me, despite my asking you directly to show me how, that's fine: please just say so.

I asked you a question, seeking an answer: it's that simple. I wasn't trying to argue a point.
quote:
If you want to know how to tell the difference, just compare it to other maps from the period and notice how it looks nothing like any of them.

You know, I linked to that map of 1852, then asked you to please school me on how that map is materially different from the one I initially posted (the one I said was also from the 19th Century and that dates from 1880). That is, what elements are present in the former that are -not- present in the latter?

Telling me, "Oh, it looks different," doesn't really tell me anything.

So: if you can answer the questions I've already posted, great: please post back, and, with your help, I can fill in any gaps in my knowledge.

Otherwise, I've given you the proof you asked for, and substantiated my claim that the map I said was of 19th Century origin is, in fact, of 19th Century origin.
Expand your moderator at work

Xstar_Lumini
join:2008-12-14
CANADA

Xstar_Lumini to John K

Member

to John K

Re: How Did They Mapped The Continents 500 Years Ago?

said by John K :

Well, here's one that is indisputably from the 19th Century, replete with an 1852 copyright date in the lower left-hand corner:

»migrationstoriesofnigeri ··· rica.jpg

Why does this map shows Ethiopia being exactly where Zimbabwe is? It's off by a long shot.

John K, I'm having problems believing that your original "19th century" african map is genuinely from the 1800's, c'mon the printing quality is too modern, look at the longitude lines printed on it, too perfect, as a matter of fact I have never seen a 19th century poster, book or drawing printed with such quality and detail in colors.

It's a map of 19th-century Africa printed in the 1940's or 1950's. The second African map link you gave us does indeed look like genuine 19th century and it reflects that with its clumsier and simpler looks than your other map.

For example, this is a painting of 16th century Apache indians painted in 2007.

»www.starkmuseum.org/geta ··· der.aspx
37563929 (banned)
join:2010-12-30
Cleveland, OH

37563929 (banned)

Member

You don't understand what the term "reprint" means do ya?

The only continent that was really off in ancient maps was North America.

John K
@conquesthousing.com

John K to Xstar_Lumini

Anon

to Xstar_Lumini
quote:
Why does this map shows Ethiopia being exactly where Zimbabwe is? It's off by a long shot.

The reason it's "off by a long shot" is because Zimbabwe did not come into existence until 1980: that map, as I mentioned earlier, dates from -18-52.
quote:
John K, I'm having problems believing that your original "19th century" african map is genuinely from the 1800's, c'mon the printing quality is too modern, look at the longitude lines printed on it, too perfect,

I'm not sure why you're convinced that 19th Century maps didn't have lines of longitude on them, but they most certainly did.

The map I linked to from 1852 features lines of longitude on it: if you don't believe me, please look again. Here's one from 1808:

»www.mapsorama.com/map-of ··· century/

with lines of longitude. John Harrison had the marine chronometer locked down by 1773, so 19th Century maps should have (and did have) lines of longitude on them.
quote:
as a matter of fact I have never seen a 19th century poster, book or drawing printed with such quality and detail in colors.

Well, you'll have to have a word with the Time-Life folks then. Here's another 19th map (from 1873):

»www.life.com/image/50692104

and a whole -bunch- of 19th Century maps here:

»www.old-map-blog.com/

So, yes, they had some pretty nice maps in the 19th Century.
quote:
It's a map of 19th-century Africa printed in the 1940's or 1950's.

Well then, I'm not clear on why TL lists it as a "19th Century Map" then gives us a date of 1880 for it.
quote:
The second African map link you gave us does indeed look like genuine 19th century and it reflects that with its clumsier and simpler looks than your other map.

Please take a look at the "old map blog" link above and you'll see that 19th Century maps were -plenty- complex. I'm not sure why, exactly, you're under the impression that 19th Century cartographers were confined to drawing "clumsy and simple" maps, but if that link doesn't convince you they weren't, then nothing else I say will.
quote:
For example, this is a painting of 16th century Apache indians painted in 2007.

That's a nice painting, but I'm not sure what a 21st Century painting has to do with 19th Century maps.

Omega
Premium Member
join:2002-07-30
Golden, CO

Omega to Xstar_Lumini

Premium Member

to Xstar_Lumini
I don't see why you have such a problem believing that these maps came from the 19th century.

Just because we rely on computers now doesn't mean the technology didn't exist to create those products back then.

They developed the nuclear bomb without advanced computers, I think they can develop a map.

Look at some of the calculations scientists did in the 16th-19th centuries. The stuff will amaze you.

Xstar_Lumini
join:2008-12-14
CANADA

Xstar_Lumini

Member

You know why I have my doubt?

1. Because no other book or poster from the 1800's has such good print quality, there should be other books or magazines with that same level of quality from the same period.

2. There's a mile/kilometer legend on the map, and cities appropriately distanced out? How in hell did anyone know how many exact miles there were from Khartoum (Sudan) to Durban (South Africa) for example? Did somebody ride a horse with a mile-long rope and measured the distance between ALL the african cities on horseback across deserts and mountains in the 1800's?

A 19th century map would have no kilometer/mile legend, it would have just rudementary info, the shape of the continent and major rivers, ect,ect.

shaner
Premium Member
join:2000-10-04
Calgary, AB

shaner

Premium Member

You don't need to know the distance from Khartoum to Durban. You only need to know the distance from Khartoum to the next town down the road. And the next town from there, and the next one from there, and so on. Then you just add it all up. It's called mathematics, and it's been around for a very long time. Yes, things were time consuming, but the scientists of the day were just as elementally knowledgeable about the visual world as our scientists today are.

Accurate map making was just as important then as it is today for all the same reasons. You have to know where your resources are, where your markets are, and how to get troops in and out of a country you want to posess. Those things have never changed.

vircotto
Premium Member
join:2002-06-04
searching...

vircotto to severach

Premium Member

to severach
said by severach:

said by PX Eliezer704:

Rather, there was disagreement as to the true circumference of the earth.

Many people thought that Columbus was underestimating the distance between Europe and the "Indies" which in fact he was!

Why would that be a problem? The circumference of the Earth was pretty well known for a long time.

Wikipedia: Eratosthenes' measurement of the earth's circumference



I think that's an interesting question so I Googled and came up with a couple of sites that address it:

Christopher Columbus Biography
»columbus-day.123holiday. ··· bus.html
Columbus’s ideas of the size of the earth and the distance between Europe and Asia were based on the descriptions contained in several geographic works. These works included the 2nd-century manuscript Geography by Ptolemy; Imago Mundi (Image of the World) by Pierre d’Ailly, published in the early 1480s; and The Travels of Marco Polo, written in 1298 after Marco Polo returned from China. Unfortunately, his ideas did not prove particularly accurate.

Columbus founded his theory on two mistaken propositions—that the Asian continent stretched much farther to the east than it actually does, and that Japan lay about 2,400 km (about 1,500 mi) east of the Asian mainland. Columbus also greatly underestimated the circumference of the earth. Columbus calculated that the Canary Islands lay only about 4,440 km (about 2,760 mi) from Japan; the actual distance is about 19,000 km (about 12,000 mi). Similar errors were made by other learned men of the time, including the Florentine geographer Paulo de Pozzo Toscanelli, with whom Columbus may have corresponded. Neither Columbus nor anyone else in Europe suspected that two vast continents lay in the way of a westward passage to Asia.
Columbus' Mistake
»www.jimloy.com/astro/col ··· mbus.htm
Columbus underestimated the size of the earth, by a big margin. The world is about twice as big as he thought it was. Was he stupid, or what? Didn't Eratosthenes measure the earth, fairly accurately, many centuries earlier?

Yes, Eratosthenes accurately measured the size of the earth. But his estimate was not accepted, at the time and later. Instead, the size of the earth was deduced by the use of maps and a kind of sloppy logic, by map makers and scientists.

John K
@conquesthousing.com

John K to Xstar_Lumini

Anon

to Xstar_Lumini
Well, here we go again; with any luck, it will be for the last time.
quote:
You know why I have my doubt?

1. Because no other book or poster from the 1800's has such good print quality, there should be other books or magazines with that same level of quality from the same period.

So 19th Century printing wasn't up to reproducing clear, easy-to-follow maps?

If you go here:

»lib.utexas.edu/maps/hist ··· ica.html

Then click on the link for "Africa 1885 (347K)" you'll see yet -another- example of 19th Century mapmaking.

»lib.utexas.edu/maps/hist ··· 1885.jpg
quote:
2. There's a mile/kilometer legend on the map, and cities appropriately distanced out?

Can you please tell me what, exactly, precludes a 19th Century map from having a scale expressed in Kilometers?

If you look in the lower-left-hand corner of the map I linked to above, guess what? You'll see a scale expressed in both English Miles and Kilometers (or rather, "Kilometres").
quote:
How in hell did anyone know how many exact miles there were from Khartoum (Sudan) to Durban (South Africa) for example? Did somebody ride a horse with a mile-long rope and measured the distance between ALL the african cities on horseback across deserts and mountains in the 1800's?

As a subsequent poster pointed out, you don't need to know the distance between Khartoum and Durban: you only need to know the distance between Khartoum and another point, then keep measuring from there.
quote:
A 19th century map would have no kilometer/mile legend, it would have just rudementary info, the shape of the continent and major rivers, ect,ect.

Well, as I hope I've just demonstrated, that's an incorrect assertion: 19th Century maps -do- have scales (not "legends") and those scales can be expressed in both miles and/or kilometers.

I have -no idea- why you would think that 19th Century travelers wouldn't need to know how many miles it is from point to another, but people in the 19th Century had to worry about their water and provisions running out, same as people traveling in the 21st Century.

With this in mind, it's not hard to see why 19th Century maps would be required to tell people how far it is, exactly, to where they want to go. A map of Africa that shows "just rudementary info, the shape of the continent and major rivers, ect,ect." is going to get anyone following it killed, and I can assure you that travelers in the 19th Century were just as interested in avoiding dying needlessly as travelers in the 21st Century are.

I hope I've been able to relieve your skepticism, because at this point, I'm not sure what more I can post here that's going to raise your estimation of 19th Century cartography. If I haven't been able to change your mind by now, it's not for lack of effort.