295 - Cathay, Here I Come: Sailing West To Go East

The Florentine mathematician, astronomer and cosmographer Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli (1397-1482) is probably best remembered for his proposal in 1474 to the Portuguese court of a scheme to sail west as a shortcut to reach the fabled Spice Islands in the east. Toscanelli never made it across the ocean, but his proposal did inspire Columbus, who took Toscanelli’s map with him on his first transatlantic voyage in 1492. The Genoese navigator was not only inspired, but also misguided by Toscanelli’s underestimation of the Earth’s circumference, leading him to think he had reached Cipangu (Japan) instead of a whole new, unknown continent lying in between Europe and Asia.

The eastern part of Toscanellli’s map, showing the extreme west of Europe and northwest of Africa, is quite accurate, even if the size of the land masses is exaggerated (in relation to the ghostly projection of the Americas); Portuguese mariners had travelled quite far south along the coast of Africa, and knew about the Azores (rediscovered in 1427). The Canary Islands were conquered by the Castilians from 1402 onwards. Nevertheless, many of the islands pictured here in the western Atlantic Ocean are quite clearly some of the many phantom islands that for a long time were recorded on maps, but were never more than legends. One such example is Hy-Brasil, probably one of the islands pictured closest to Ireland.

Another phantom island, mentioned on this map, is Antillia, also known as the Island of Seven Cities or St Brendan’s Island, and often used as a synonym for the Isles of the Blessed or the Fortunate Islands. The muddled legends of Antillia have been around since at least Plutarch’s time (ca. 74 AD). Its name might be a corruption of Atlantis; or a derivation of anterioris insula, Latin for an island located ‘before’ Cipangu; or a transformation of Jazeerat at-Tennyn, Arabic for ‘Island of the Dragon’. Toscanelli on his map uses Antillia as the main marker for measuring distance between Portugal and Cipangu.

The reference to Sete Ciudades (‘Seven Cities’) is reminiscent of an Iberian legend of seven bishops fleeing the Arab conquest of the peninsula and founding a city each on the island, which became a sort of Utopian commonwealth. Some claim the legend of Antillia represents an earlier discovery of the islands that eventually became known as… the Antilles. Improving nautical knowledge eventually led Antillia to disappear from maps, but the legends surrounding it continued to inspire explorers for a long time – e.g. the ‘Seven Cities’, that were sought in the Southwest of the US or even posited on Cape Breton Island in Canada.

Cippangu (also written as Cipangu, Zipangu or Jipangu) is the name by which Japan had been known in Europe since Marco Polo brought home the name of the island. The name derives from an early Chinese word for Japan, Ribenguo, meaning ‘country of sun origin’. Polo’s description of Cippangu as being extremely rich in silver and gold triggered the imagination of Europeans for many years to come.

Cathay as a European name for China also derives from Marco Polo, who used it for northern China (southern China being ‘Manji’ in his accounts). Cathay probably comes from Khitan, a tribe in northern China. Only in the 19^th century was the usage in English of Cathay eclipsed by the word ‘China’. Russian still uses the word – there’s still an area of Moscow called Kitaigorod, ‘Chinatown’.

Many thanks to Roland Ottewell, who scanned this map from ’A Literary and Historical Atlas of America’, probably published before 1920.

294 - Err Lingus

What is it with airlines and maps? Which part of ‘atlas’ don’t they understand? You’d think that, being the business of transportation, they’d get their distances and directions straight. Some time ago, I posted a map by Swiss Airlines that placed a lot of its destinations at a worrying distance from their actual location (#271).

But to be fair to the Swiss, they’re not the only ones to get this kind of thing dead wrong. Have a look at this excerpt of an Aer Lingus map, showing some of their North American destinations. Let’s not split hairs over the fact that New Orleans is located on the other, inland side of Lake Pontchartrain (they should be so lucky).

Take a look instead about those upstate New York destinations that have moved to le Nord-du-Québec. Buffalo, birthplace of the late lamented Tim Russert (and of the eponymous chicken wings – real buffalos don’t have wings), has moved from the eastern shore of Lake Erie to the eastern shore of James Bay, the southern offshoot of the Hudson Bay.

Thanks to Lindsay Watt for notifying me of this map. The full map may be seen here at her blog, where she also details some of the other ‘moved’ locations: “From what I can tell, Rochester has moved over to be Eastmain, Nunavut*. Burlington is Lac Guillaume-Delisle** and Syracuse is Lac Bienville**.”

 

* I would have thought Eastmain was in Québec, but the link in Ms Watt’s blog to a Googlemap of the town shows it to be an exclave of Nunavut. Wikipedia, however, lists it as part of Québec. Can anybody clarify? And while I’m asking questions: scrolling Googlemaps of the area, I was struck by the weird shape of Flaherty Island in the Hudson Bay. What’s up with that? Does anybody know anything about the why and the how of that strangely shaped place?

** not the names of towns, but of proper lakes, both unequivocally located in Québec, although the former seems to be in the autonomous Nunavik region, and the latter might also be, or be in Jamésie, the southern of both regions that compose ‘le Nord-du-Québec’. I can’t find a map showing the lakes’ position vis-à-vis the borderline. My just deserts for berating Aer Lingus’ lack of map-reading skills!

293 - Come Visit New Jersey… You’ll Never Leave

(click on image to enlarge)

The Zeitgeist of the mid ‘fifties probably wasn’t shrinkwrapped in quite so many layers of irony and political correctness as today’s is, or a map like this would never have been made – let alone contemplated. It looks like a tourist map of New Jersey, inviting patrons to come sample the delights of the Garden State. On closer inspection, it details as New Jersey’s main attractions its prisons… as if this is the Warden State instead.

An arrow points to Atlantic City, and to the map’s purpose: Here the American Prison Association, October 8th – 13th. The place that serves as an East Coast alternative to Las Vegas (minus the sunshine, plus a boardwalk) apparently hosted a convention for the APA in early October of 1955. Here’s an overview of the places in NJ that epitomise the subject matter of the convention, if not its rather more pleasant surroundings (north to south):

• The Essex County Penitentiary at Caldwell and the Hudson County Penitentiary at Secaucus, both near Newark.
• Annandale Farms: Here minimum security prison for men 18-30 trainable in vocational and agricultural work.
• Reformatory for Women at Clinton, not too far from Annandale Farms: Here minimum security for all women over 17 – cottages for classification.
• Reformatory Rahway, on the southern outskirts of Newark and seemingly, quite cruelly, within sight of the Statue of Liberty: Here maximum and limited security for industrial type prisoner under 30.
• Middlesex County Workhouse at New Brunswick and Mercer County Workhouse.
• Home for Boys at Jamesburg: Here juveniles 9 to 17 – cottage plan – educational and vocational training.
• Home for Girls at Trenton: Here juveniles 9-17 - cottage plan - educational and vocational training.
• State Prison at Trenton: Maximum security for psychotic and psychopathic inmates from all penal and correctional institutions furnished in criminal section of Trenton State Hospital. (an arrow pointing towards the prison’s northern side, I presume, rather than to the aforementioned Home for Girls; another arrowed message reads): Here maximum security for more serious offenders with poor records – long sentences.
• Prison Farm at Bordentown: Here minimum custody for older men of common labor type and men nearing time of discharge.
• Camden County Workhouse at Angora, close to the Philadelphia-Camden conurbation.
• Prison Farm at Leesburg: Here minimum security for older men (of common labor type).

New Jersey’s road network is shown in detail, with the distances between the major cities, no doubt to facilitate the journeys of the out-of-state APA personnel attending the convention. In case some of them had some time to spare, the map also contains some genuine tourist attractions (also north to south):

• High Point State Park (highest point in New Jersey): A maximum elevation of 1,803 ft (550 m) doesn’t seem much to bark about, but NJ has centred a whole State Park around the aptly named High Point, in the Kittatinny Mountains – and in 1930 crowned it with a 220 ft (67 m) monument to the war dead. The park is slated for closure on 1 July 2008.
• In this section – mountain and lake resorts
• Lake Hopatcong (largest in New Jersey) popular summer resort: About 4 square miles (10 km2) large, Hopatcong used to be two lakes (Great Pond and Little Pond) before the damming of the Musconetcong River in 1750 joined the  two up. Its name therefore is of relatively recent coinage.
• Delaware Water Gap (scenic beauty): Where the Delaware River cuts through a ridge of the Appalachian Mountains (called the Blue Mountains in Pennsylvania and the Kittatinny Ridge in New Jersey. The respective mountains on either side of the gap are Mount Tammany (PA) and Mount Minsi (NJ).
• Here the palisades of the Hudson River: The Palisades are a line of steep cliffs on the lower Hudson’s western shore, stretching from Jersey City (NJ) about 20 mi (32 km) north to Nyack (NY) and ranging in height from 350 to 550 ft (107 to 168 m). Apparently, the movie term cliffhanger originates here, dating back to the silent movie era.
• Newark’s airport is world’s busiest: At 15 miles (24 km) southwest of Manhattan’s Midtown, Newark Airport still is a major gateway into New York, but no longer the world’s busiest – not even anymore in 1955: after 1939, the opening of LaGuardia halved the traffic, giving Chicago the lead. JFK is now the US’s busiest international airport, Newark is the 10th (handling over 36 million passengers in 2007).
• Here New Jersey’s “skyway” – 3 miles of elevated highway reaching height of 135 feet – cost 19 millions: The General Pulaski Skyway, dubbed America’s first superhighway, carries four lanes for 3.5 miles (5.6 km) between Newark and Jersey City. It is called a skyway because it rises to a height of 135 ft (41.1 m) in order to avoid drawbridges on the Hackensack and Passaic Rivers.
• Here the Holland Tunnel, 9,250 ft. long, cost 48 millions: Completed in 1927, the Holland Tunnel connects Jersey City with Manhattan via two tubes, each carrying two lanes. It was named after its chief engineer, who died during a tonsillectomy the day before the two ends met. The construction had to be done under enormous pressure, to avoid the river entering the tunnel – which meant the workers had to enter the site via airlocks and had to undergo extensive decompression (over ¾ million individual decompressions were carried out, with over 500 cases of the bends nevertheless occurring).
• Here Fort Hancock, US defense of NY harbor: A US Army fort on Sandy Hook beachvital for the defence of NY harbour, especially during World War II, decommissioned in 1972 and now part of the Gateway National Recreation Area.
• Princeton University: Founded in 1748 as the College of New Jersey (at Elizabeth), the institution later moved to and named after Princeton. It is one of 8 Ivy League universities.
• Washington’s crossing: Here two state parks where Washington crossed Delaware: George Washington crossed the Delaware from Titusville (NJ) to Yardley (PA) on 25 December 1776 as the first move in a surprise attack on the Hessians at Trenton (NJ). The location comprises two state parks: Washington Crossing State Park on the NJ side, Washington Crossing Historic Park on the PA side.
• US Naval Air Station at Lakehurst, home of the Macon: Lakehurst remains infamous for the Hindenburg crash on 6 May 1937, in which that German airship burst into flames and 36 people died. In fact, the Hindenburg exploded over Manchester Township, as none of the Lakehurst Naval Air Station is actually located in Lakehurst, which would have preferred to be remembered as a rather fetching early 20th century winter resort. The Naval Air Station was the centre of American military airship development since the 1920s, housing the Macon, among others (cf. inf.) and retains its function as a research and testing station for the US Navy. 
• Barnegat Light: A small town on the Jersey shore, getting its name from the Dutch, who in 1614 named the area Barendegat (‘Inlet of the Breakers’). Originally named Brownsville and from 1881 Barnegat City, it was renamed Barnegat Light in 1948 in honour of the Barnegat Lighthouse, which was decommissioned four years earlier. There’d been a lighthouse here since 1835, although the one remaining there is the second such structure. Commissioned in 1858, ‘Old Barney’ is the third-tallest lighthouse in the US, at 165 ft (50 m) above sea level.
• Here the Akron fell: The USS Akron, call letters ZRS-4, was a US Navy rigid airship launched in 1931. At 785 ft (239 m) long, it was the largest helium-filled flying object ever, together with its sister-ship the Macon. The Akron crashed in a storm off the NJ shore on 4 April 1933, killing 73 people on board – the deadliest air crash in history (so far). Only 3 men, among them Lt. Comm. Wiley, survived, fished out of the ocean by the German motorboat Phoebius. In a bizarre coincidence, another airship called the Akron, this one buoyed by hydrogen, also perished in an accident in NJ, in 1912.

A rather puzzling legend, which seems neither aimed at tourists nor connectet to the APA, unless very tenuously, reads: Here Vineland – famous for its contributions to our knowledge of the feebleminded. Another arrow elucidates: Here the Vineland Training School and Vineland State School.These were influential schools in the field of mental health, and is in fact here that the term moron was coined. Vineland was also the location of the Palace of Depression (not a reference to the mental state, but to the financial crisis and also dubbed America’s strangest house, completed for $4 in 1932, burned down in the ‘sixties and now being rebuilt).

Thanks to Peter Robinett for sending in this map, found here on boingboing, originally from this cartography page at Rutgers University in, of course, New Jersey.

292 - China As An Island

China has land borders with 14 other countries – a world record*. And yet you should not think of China as particularly well-integrated with its neighbours. In fact, as shown in this dramatic map, you should rather consider China to be an island.

That stark image can be found illustrating this article on John Mauldin’s Outside the Box, a blog at Investors Insight, which is a website dedicated to ‘Financial Intelligence for the Informed Investor’. On his blog, Mr Mauldin hebdomadally profiles one of the many articles he reads each week, to challenge and stimulate investors to ‘think outside the box’. What follows is a very brief summary of the article he recently highlighted: ‘The Geopolitics of China’, taken from a series of Geopolitical Monographs by Stratfor.

The Chinese heartland, pictured here as the part of China above water, is favourable to agriculture and has traditionally held the bulk of the Chinese population (i.e. the ethnic Han, whom we think of as ‘the’ Chinese); Over a billion people live here, in an area half the size of the US. The heartland’s northern part is dominated by the Yellow River and speaks Mandarin, the southern part by the Yangtze River and by Cantonese.

Population pressure has always pushed China to expand into Tibet, Xinjiang, Mongolia and Manchuria. Another factor is the historical threat emanating from this non-Han ‘shell’ surrounding the Han heartland, for example from the nomad Mongol horsemen that have long threatened and occasionally dominated the sedentary, agricultural Han.

In the past, when the Chinese state was strong, it managed to conquer and rule these outlying areas, providing a defensive buffer for the heartland. When central authority was weak, these fringes broke off – leaving the heartland vulnerable to invasion. China is strong again, even up to the point where the fringes now are the target of large migrations of Han, much to the chagrin of the native peoples.

This Han-ification of the Chinese fringe does not necessarily imply that the Chinese have more contact with the countries beyond their borders. Only in three places are the Chinese borders naturally permeable: at the Vietnamese frontier, via the Silk Road, and near Russian Far East. Hilly jungles separate China from Laos and Burma, the Himalayas shield it from the Indian subcontinent, almost impassable deserts divide it from Central Asia and the forbidding expanses of Siberia have never appealed to Chinese expansionism (until now, as the Russians fear).

With the exception of the Ming dynasty’s sponsorship of admiral Zheng He’s naval expeditions (as far away as Sri Lanka, Arabia and Africa) in the early 15th century, China has never attempted to be a naval-based power – so for most of its history, China’s ports on the Pacific were hardly windows on the world either.

China’s relative isolation, combined with the size of its population (1 in every 5 humans is Chinese), means China is virtually impossible to subdue militarily (as the Japanese discovered to their disadvantage in the 1930s). It also means China can – and often has – turned its back on the world, existing in splendid isolation.

Its size and its penchand for autarkism dictate China’s three main geopolitical objectives:

• maintain unity of the Han heartland;
• maintain control over the non-Han buffer zone;
• deflect foreign encroachment on the Chinese coast.

Clearly isolationist, these objectives also condemn China to poverty: as a densely populated country with limited arable land, China needs internatioal trade to prosper. The paradox is that prosperity will lead to instability. Prosperity will tend to be concentrated in the areas trading with the outside world (i.e. the coastal regions), creating economic tensions with the poorer interior. This might destabilise the Han heartland.

This is exactly what happened during an earlier ouverture towards the outside world, in the early 20th century. And this is why Mao’s revolution first failed in the coastal areas, and only succeeded after his Long March towards the poorer interior. Mao’s victory allowed him to reassert central control from Beijing (also over the buffer regions which had ‘drifted away’, such as Tibet). He also ‘re-isolated’ the country, in the process making everybody equally poor again.

In the late 1970s, early 1980s, Deng Xiaoping took the gamble of reopening China in order to make it prosperous again. He counted on Mao’s strong, centralised, single-party state system to keep the country together. Time will tell whether he was right, for the main threat to China’s geopolitical goals has again become the economic bifurcation of the Han heartland, with 400 million Chinese living in the relatively wealthy coastal areas, and 900 million in the often still desperately poor interior.

China is now less isolated than it once was – although its points of contact remain coastal rather than terrestrial, meaning the insularity portrayed in this map has not completely vanished. But what makes the Chinese leadership nervous is that its Deng-instigated preference for prosperity over stability is precariously linked to circumstances beyond Beijing’s total control: the health and growth of the global economy. What will happen if a global recession threatens the Chinese model? Will the fringe rebel, will the heartland fracture? Or will the center hold – if necessary by again choosing the stability of an isolationist, hardline dictatorship over openness and prosperity?

Many thanks to Eric Johnson for providing a link to this map.

* North Korea, Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar/Burma, Laos and Vietnam. China shares the world record with Russia, which also borders 14 countries: Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia and North Korea.

291 - Federal Lands in the US

The United States government has direct ownership of almost 650 million acres of land (2.63 million square kilometers) - nearly 30% of its total territory. These federal lands are used as military bases or testing grounds, nature parks and reserves and indian reservations, or are leased to the private sector for commercial exploitation (e.g. forestry, mining, agriculture). They are managed by different administrations, such as the Bureau of Land Management, the US Forest Service, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the US Department of Defense, the US Army Corps of Engineers, the US Bureau of Reclamation or the Tennessee Valley Authority.

This map details the percentage of state territory owned by the federal government. The top 10 list of states with the highest percentage of federally owned land looks like this:

1. Nevada           84.5%
2. Alaska            69.1%
3. Utah               57.4%
4. Oregon           53.1%
5. Idaho              50.2%
6. Arizona           48.1%
7. California        45.3%
8. Wyoming         42.3%
9. New Mexico     41.8%
10. Colorado          36.6%

 Notable is that all these states are in the West (except Alaska, which strictly speaking is also a western state, albeit northwestern). Also notable is the contrast between the highest and the lowest percentages of federal land ownership. The US government owns a whopping 84.5% of Nevada, but only a puny 0.4% of Rhode Island and Connecticut. The lowest-percentage states are mainly in the East, but some are also in the Midwest and in the South:

1. Connecticut      0.4%
2. Rhode Island     0.4%
3. Iowa                  0.8%
4. New York          0.8%
5. Maine                1.1%
6. Kansas              1.2%
7. Nebraska           1.4%
8. Alabama            1.6%
9. Ohio                  1.7%
10. Illinois               1.8%

Even the 10^th place is still below the two percent mark. One territory is not specified on the map: Washington D.C. It could be argued that this is the only main administrative division of US territory to be fully owned by the federal government. It could, but that would be wrong - and upsetting to those private citizens who own part of the nation’s capital in the form of their real estate. It would be more correct to state that the District of Columbia by default falls under the direct tutelage of the Federal Government. 

Many thanks to Jonathan Leblang and Adam Hahn for signaling this map, which appeared as an illustration to ‘Can the West Lead Us To A Better Place?‘, an article in Stanford Magazine, a periodical for and about alumni from that university.

290 - A ‘Francophone Corridor’ to Link Brussels and Wallonia

An interesting proposal has surfaced to help resolve the intra-Belgian political stalemate between Dutch-speaking Flemings and French-speakers, who prevail in Brussels and Wallonia: a couloir francophone (‘Francophone corridor’) that would link Wallonia to Brussels, thus ending the Belgian capital’s territorial isolation within Flanders.

Brussels is officially bilingual (Dutch and French) but is mainly French-speaking in practice. A ‘corridor’ would allow for territorial contiguity with Wallonia (officially French-speaking), thus facilitating the creation of a Brussels-Wallonia federation – a counterweight to the Flemish government, which already unites personal and territorial competences.*

The corridor would obviously have to be transferred from Flanders to Brussels (or Wallonia), possibly in exchange for a solution to the fiendishly complicated problem of B-H-V that would be favourable to the Flemish point of view.

B-H-V stands for Bruxelles-Hal-Vilvorde (in French) or Brussel-Halle-Vilvoorde (in Dutch). It is an electoral district that covers both Brussels (officially bilingual) and part of Flemish Brabant (officially unilingual Dutch). Flemish political parties see B-H-V as an anachronism, as it allows French-speakers in that part of Flemish Brabant (ever more numerous, as Brussels expands) to vote for Francophone politicians (in Brussels), thus disincentivising them to integrate in Flanders and learn Dutch. All Flemish parties demand the split-up of B-H-V as a way of maintaining the territorial and linguistic integrity of Flanders.

Francophone political parties see B-H-V as an essential part of the ‘Belgian pact’, regard the proposals for its demise as an attempt to disenfranchise Francophones living in Flanders, have enlisted inspectors of the Council of Europe to find in their favour and fear that without B-H-V as a cornerstone, the split-up of Belgium would be one more step closer. Most Francophone parties would however consider splitting B-H-V in exchange for the territorial enlargement of Brussels with at least some of its mainly Francophone suburbs, and/or a territorial link to Wallonia.

The Francophone Brussels newspaper Le Soir last week published the outlines of a proposed corridor,supposedly on the table in current discussions behind closed doors aimed at resolving the ongoing crisis, that would provide a 2.5 km long link between Uccle (in Brussels) and Waterloo (in Wallonia) by transferring a narrow strip of the Zoniënwoud (Forêt de Soignes in French) from the Flemish to the Francophone side.

As with many things involving the language battles raging in Belgium, this proposal has a slightly surreal feel to it. The transfer of this nature reserve from Flanders to French-speaking Belgium would arguably change the linguistic status of its only permanent inhabitants from Dutch-speaking to French-speaking squirrels.

This map found here on this page of the Le Soir newspaper.

 

* presently, the Wallonian government has territorial competences in Wallonia only, and a Francophone government has personal competences concerning French-speakers in Brussels and Wallonia.

 

289 - Galoshes of the World, Unite and Take Over!

I first encountered the term ‘galoshes’ in the same Russian novels that also introduced me, albeit equally theoretically, to the samowar*. Subsequently, I’ve always thought of galoshes (also known as overshoes or gumshoes) as typical of Russia. 

This poster seems to confirm this, but the habit of donning rubber shoes over more delicate types of footwear to protect these from water and mud is more widespread. In fact, the word ‘galoshes’ is of French origin: galoches, possibly derives from chaussures gauloises, i.e. ‘Gallic shoes’. This could refer to shoes carved entirely out of wood (compare clogs, now considered typically Dutch), wooden soles worn underneath the shoes, or leather overshoes with wooden soles. Charles Goodyear, the pioneer of vulcanization, apparently was instrumental in the transition, somewhere near the end of the nineteenth century, of wood to rubber as a preferred component for galoshes.

In Russia, galoshes are an essential part of hibernal shodding, so the pavlovian association between the two isn’t too far-fetched. This ad poster for them was designed by Vladimir Mayakovski (1893-1930), the Russian futurist poet and bolshevist agitator. Mayakovski’s first published poems appeared in the futurist publication ‘A Slap in the Face of Public Taste’ (1912); his first published poem of considerable length was ‘A Cloud in Trousers’ (1915). Another great title is ‘The Backbone Flute’ (1916), a love poem dedicated, rather infelicitously, to the wife of his publisher.

After the Soviet revolution (1917), Mayakovski started producing both graphic and text for Agitprop** posters; he became a popular exponent of what he called Komfut (‘Communist Futurism’). As such, he was allowed to travel freely throughout the West – fathering an illegitimate child with an American woman – before growing increasingly disillusioned with the course of the Soviet Union under Stalin; he shot himself in 1930.

Mayakovski produced this poster in 1924 for the Soviet rubber-industry trust Rezinotrest. The text reads: “Rezinotrest protects you from rain and mud. Without galoshes, Europe would sit and weep.”

The map is not just strange because of the galactic galosh hurtling towards Earth; Mayakovski may have been a great poet and graphic designer, but he wasn’t much of a cartographer. The borders of the Soviet Union, highlighted in red, are rendered fairly accurately, but Europe is severely disfigured: an oversized Scandinavian peninsula points toward an expanse of water where most of Western Europe should be. There is no sign of the British Isles either, and the Iberian peninsula is wrong and too big. Iceland is attached to Greenland, and half of China seems to have fallen into the ocean. With that much more water on the planet, you’d need some big galoshes indeed to get around…

Thanks to Felix Hippmann for sending in this map, found here at the Wikipedia entry for galoshes.

* a typically Russian (and Central-Asian) kettle for boiling water to prepare tea, no relation at all to the manowar, a type of battleship.

** a contraction of ‘agitation’ and ‘propaganda’ reminiscent of – or rather prefiguring – the concept of Newspeak in George Orwell’s 1984, originally denoting the dissemination by the Bolsheviks of knowledge beneficial for the masses, later signifying any form of left-wing propaganda.

288 - Okeanos and Oikoumenè: Homer’s Snowdome

Homer (not the slouch of Springfield heralding the end of Western civilization, but the blind, semi-mythical poet at the dawn of Greek history) was seen by Strabo and the Stoics as the father of geography. His overarching geographic concept was of the world as a flat, round disk of land, completely encircled by Okeanos, the world sea.

All this was enclosed by the fixed dome of the Heavens, filled with cloud and mist close to the Earth, but with clear aether closer to the sky’s dome. Sun, Moon and stars rose from the eastern waters of the Ocean, moved along the dome and sank again into the western waters. The whole thing is reminiscent of nothing so much as of one of those snowdomes that are the staple of any self-respecting tourist trap.

This vision is expounded in the Iliad, in which Homer uses Achilles’ shield, forged by Hephaestos, to metaphorically describe the universe as a circular island, surrounded by water. Human activities, celestial objects and stellar motions are described on the shield, which is actually a map, on the threshold between a purely mythological and an nascent scientific view of the world.

Homer’s world vision is almost certainly meant to be symbolic rather than realistic – no ships are sailing on the all-encircling sea, which is intended to emphasise the unity of the Oikoumenè, the whole inhabited world. But this vision is based on real geographical knowledge, and shows the Greeks of the eighth century BC had a good grasp of the layout eastern Mediterranean – Homer’s Iliad and especially his Odyssey are replete with references to routes and places, both real and imagined (or at least not yet identified).

This map found here.

287 - Dam You, Mediterranean: the Atlantropa Project

(Atlantropa ‘part one’, click map to enlarge)

(Atlantropa ‘part two’, click map to enlarge)

 

Herman Sörgel’s Atlantropa is the craziest, most megalomaniacal scheme from the 20th century you never heard of.

Sörgel (1885-1952) was a renowned German architect of the Bauhaus school, and a philosopher reflecting on culture, space and geopolitics. On the future’s horizon, he saw the emergence of three global superpowers, one uniting the American continent, another a Pan-Asian block, and Europe – possibly the weakest of the three.

His solution was to engineer Europe out of its problems. Sörgel based his solution for Pan-European power and self-sufficiency on the observation that, although significant amounts of water flow into the Mediterranean through the Strait of Gibraltar (from the Atlantic Ocean) and the Dardanelles (from the Black Sea), its level stays the same, through evaporation. Hence his proposal to dam the Mediterranean at both ends, using the reduced inflow to generate massive amounts of hydroelectricity (110,000 Megawatt via several dams, of which 50,000 MW via the Gibraltar dam alone) and in the process create new land, which not only could be used for colonisation, but would also connect Europe to Africa. Thus would be created a new supercontinent, Atlantropa (giving the former easy access to the latter’s raw materials).

Sörgel first publicised his ideas in his 1929 book Mittelmeer-Senkung, Sahara-Bewässerung, Panropaprojekt (‘Lowering the Mediterranean, Irrigating the Sahara: the Panropa Project’), reiterating and specifying them in Atlantropa (1932). Later versions of the project included plans to create a series of giant lakes in Central Africa (Sörgel’s father, significantly, pioneered hydroelectricity in Bavaria).

Sörgel, as a visionary pacifist, had noble motives and his ideas were not without merit, but the logistics of the project were daunting. He saw cheap hydroelectricity as the answer to a future in which non-renewable energy sources such as coal, gas and oil would dwindle to depletion; he thought colonising new lands in the Mediterranean would give European nations a positive focus towards cooperation and help avoid another war. The growth of industry and agriculture would thus be safeguarded. And the land reclamation of parts of the Mediterranean seafloor would mirror, on a much larger scale, the centuries-old communal struggle of Holland against the North Sea. It would also provide another outlet for Napoleon’s vision of forging a peaceful European Union through the joint colonisation of Europe’s East (an idea no doubt constructed to co-justify Napoleon’s Russia campaign of 1812). The massive works would go on for more than a century, eliminating unemployment for generations.

But consider what was to be the lynchpin of Atlantropa, the Gibraltar dam. At its narrowest, the Strait of Gibraltar is 14 km (9 mi) wide. And yet, for some reason, Sörgel decided the dam should be built 30 km further inside the Mediterranean, where it would have to be significantly longer. The foundations for the dam would have to be 2.5 km wide, and 300 m high. To complete, it would take 10 years, and 200,000 workers, labouring in 4 continuous shifts. The dam would be crowned by a 400 meter high tower. Calculations at the time cast doubt on whether there would be enough concrete in the world to complete the gargantuesque project.

And consider what would happen to the Mediterranean, cut in two by the lower sea levels, with Sicily connected to both Tunisia and the Italian mainland (allowing, among other things for a regular train service between Berlin and Cape Town). In the western half, the water would be lowered by 100 meters, in the eastern half by as much as 200 meters, combining to create 576,000 km2 new dry land, a fifth of the Mediterranean’s surface, or more than the surface of Belgium and France together. Imagine the problems and traumas this would create for coastal cities such as Marseille or Genoa. Sörgel did propose the construction of new harbours, and did provide a special solution for Venice: another dam would safeguard its lagoon from drying out. But that lagoon would be a lake, 500 km away from the nearest seashore.

Sörgel’s plan would be considered outdated today for more reasons than just its megalomania. It was also completely eurocentric, proposing a Euro-African continent entirely run by and for the benefit of Europe(ans), Africa(ns) being reduced to supplying raw materials (he also saw a strong Atlantropa, also controlling the Middle East, as a bulwark against the ‘Yellow Peril’). Furthermore, there was totally no regard for its ecological impact (the increased salinity of the remaining Mediterranean Seas would have killed off much of the flora and fauna, the precipitation patterns could shift dramatically). And one shudders to think what would happen if the giant Gibraltar dam would be breached by a tsunami, an earthquake or a terrorist attack.

Despite his pacifist leanings, Sörgel attempted to reformulate his ideas in a way more favourable to the national-socialist world view. In 1938, he wrote Die drei grossen A: Amerika, Atlantropa, Asien - Grossdeutschland un italienisches Imperium, die Pfeiler Atlantropas (‘The Three Big A’s: America, Atlantropa, Asia – Greater Germany and the Italian Empire, the Pillars of Atlantropa’), and in 1942 the equally Lebensraum-ish Atlantropa-ABC: Kraft, Raum, Brot (‘Atlantropa ABC: Strength, Space, Bread’).
Sörgel’s ideas never caught on with the Nazis, whose expansionist plans were oriented more towards the East than towards the South. The idea therefore survived the Second World War, but was eventually rendered moot by the advent of nuclear power and the end of colonialism.
Sörgel kept defending his ideas literally to the death: in 1952, he was hit and killed by a car while biking to hold a speech on his Atlantropa project, the dream of which died a slow death after his own. In 1960, the Atlantropa Institute was closed. Although Atlantropa never came close to realisation, or maybe because of it, the concept did gain some currency in science fiction circles. A few examples:
• Soviet SF writer Grigory Grebnev’s ‘The Flying Station’ (1950) describes a future in which the Socialist Revolution has triumphed, but small groups of Neo-Nazis hiding near the North Pole are conspiring to destroy the Revolution’s most precious project, a Gibraltar dam.
• Philip K. Dick’s ‘The Man in the High Castle’ (1962) mentions in passing the draining of the Mediterranean by the victorious Nazis (as well as their genocide on Africans).

Thanks to Marc Itschner and Sebastian Castañiza for informing me of the Atlantropa project and of this map (in German), showing its Mediterranean component, which can be found on the relevant Wikipedia page. It shows (in the upper left corner) Venice, connected via a canal to the Mediterranean, and (in the upper right corner) the Sea of Marmara with dam and power station, (in the lower left corner) the main dam and power station at Gibraltar, (in the lower middle of the map) a second dam at Sicily to facilitate the differentiated lowering of the eastern Mediterranean’s sea level and (in the lower right corner) an extension of  the Suez Canal. The legend indicates planned rail links, planned irrigation areas through desalinisation plants, and amount of land reclaimed (in kilometers).

The second map of the ‘African’ part of the project can be found here, on a page called Xefer. It shows the African interior dominated by a few huge, artificial lakes: Lake Chad hypertrophied into the Chad Sea, reaching deep into the Sahara, its overflow connected to the Mediterranean, but also connected via the Ubangi Overflow to a titanic Congo Lake, created by damming the Congo River and flooding most of Congo’(s interior.

286 - The New World Order (1942)

 

(click map to enlarge)

Published in Philadelphia in early 1942, this ‘Outline of (the) Post-War New World Map’, created by Maurice Gomberg, shows a proposal to re-arrange the world after an Allied victory against the Axis forces. Its title refers to a ‘New World Order’, a vague concept, its many definitions often contradicting each other. At the core of the NWO, however, is always the notion that a small group of powerful individuals, institutions, industries and/or nations must lead the world in the right direction (i.e. towards ‘unification’). This may be against the world’s own will (and therefore done covertly, at least in some versions of the NWO-story), but ultimately it is for its own good.

One of the most recent references to the NWO by a major political figure was made by US president George Bush (Sr), who explicitly used the NWO to refer to US objectives in a Post-Cold War world. The term has a pedigree much older than the Cold War, or even both World Wars. Some might even say – and now we’re straying somewhat prematurely into the field of conspiracy theory – that it goes all the way back to Roman times, as is attested by the (modified) quote of the Roman poet Virgil on the revers of the US Great Seal and (significantly or not, since 1935) on the back of the dollar bill: Novus Ordo Seclorum – literally: ‘A New Order for the Ages’.

In a modern context, it was the British imperialist Cecil Rhodes (who gave his name to Rhodesia) who first proposed a federal world government to be imposed by the US and the British Empire. US President Woodrow Wilson was inspired by a similar concept to draw up his plans for a League of Nations in the aftermath of World War I. Most fascist regimes in the 20s, 30s and 40s of the twentieth century also proposed some sort of NWO – in fact, most styled themselves to be a ‘New Order’. H.G. Wells – he of ‘War of the Worlds’ – wrote ‘The Open Conspiracy’ (1928) in which he describes his efforts to get intellectuals to back the idea of a World Social Democracy and ‘The New World Order’ (1940), in which he details how a generation of struggle will be necessary to overcome the opponents of such a global government.

From this sketchy overview, it might be equally sketchily concluded that One World Government was the mostly benevolent projected outcome of an optimist, positivist, socialist and/or imperialist (or in some cases, national-socialist) world view, a kind of secular New Jerusalem, the best of all possible worlds. The death of communism, which as an ideal expired much earlier than its empire, can be seen as the ultimate argument against this philosophy. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it share that resource equally with the other horses. The philosophy of man is not: work as much as you can, consume as much as you need, but: work as little as you need to, consume as much as you can. Karl Marx defeated by Gordon Gekko.

And yet, optimism persists – for what else can it do? In the face of continuing efforts to better the world, to ‘unify’ it, opposition to NWO-like groups, institutions and intentions have coalesced into a myriad of theories, most of which are of a conspirational nature (I would say that, being in the pay of the Bilderberg Group), all of which fly the flag of freedom (for the secular-minded) or religion (for those who see the End Times brought nearer by the likes of UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon). This is where an overview has to limit itself to naming some of the many conspirational configurations suspected to be secretly running the New World Order. Pick and mix, and create your own conspiracy: the Illuminati, the freemasons, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, the Jews, the Bilderberg Group, the G-8, the Nazis, the Bretton-Woods agreement, black helicopters, US-alien collusion, the Zionist lobby in cahoots with American Neo-Cons, those out to ‘miscegenate’ and dilute the white race, the House of Windsor, the Antichrist, a cabal of multinational corporations, extraterrestrial reptilians, the United Nations…

I don’t know whether Maurice Gomberg, of whom next to no information is traceable online, was an extraterrestrial reptilian, but he certainly has a Jewish surname, which would make him equally suspect in some circles. Not much more is known of him; it has even been suggested that this map was a Nazi forgery*, to induce fear in America of a communist takeover of the world. But I think it’s safer to assume that this map was an earnest attempt, out of the aforementioned benevolent socialist sentiments, to propose a reorganization of the world that would end war once and for all, and bring “permanent peace, freedom, justice, security and world reconstruction”. Or at least let that be our working assumption in evaluating this map. The main building blocks of his New World Order were to be:

• The United States of America (USA): the US, Canada, all Central American and Carribean states, most Atlantic islands (including Greenland and Iceland), most Pacific islands, Taiwan, Hainan, the Philippines and several now Indonesian islands, including Sulawesi. This was to be the dominant power in the world, military and otherwise.
• The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR): the Soviets were to be rewarded with Persia (Iran), Mongolia, Manchuria, Finland, and all of Eastern Europe, which subsequently would form part of the Eastern Bloc (excluding Albania, but including the real-life maverick state of Yugoslavia, socialist but anti-Soviet). All of theses states were simply to become member-states of the USSR. Austria and most of Germany, although ‘quarantained’ are shown within the Soviet sphere.
• The United States of South America (USSA): including all South American states, with the three Guianas as a single constituent state and the Falkland Islands part of the USSA.
• The Union of African Republics (UAR): All of Africa as a federation of republics.
• The Arabian Federated Republics (AFR): covering Saudi and all other states now occupying the Arabian Peninsula, plus present-day Iraq and Syria.
• The Federated Republics of India (FRI): Present-day Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Birma (Myanmar).
• The United Republics of China (URC): A federation including all parts of present-day China, Korea, the erstwhile French colony of Indochina (now Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia), Thailand and Malaya.
• The United States of Scandinavia (USS): Norway, Sweden, Denmark.
• The United States of Europe (USE): the Benelux countries, the German Rhineland, France, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal and Italy.
• And finally the British Commonwealth of Nations (BCN), including Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Madagascar and most of Indonesia.

Smaller entities include Eire (the whole of Ireland), Greece (including Albania), Turkey (excluding European Turkey), Hebrewland (the Holy Land plus Jordan) and Japan. The three axis states (Germany, Italy and Japan) were to be ‘quarantained’ until they could be readmitted in the family of nations.

Mr Gomberg possibly took his cue for this map from US president Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose speech about Four Freedoms and a Moral Order (from his State of the Union to the 77-th Congress) he quotes, before outlining his own vision (at the bottom of the map):

“As the USA with the cooperation of the Democracies of Latin-America, the British Commonwealth of Nations and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, assumes world leadership for the establishment of a New World Moral Order for permanent peace, justice, security and world reconstruction.”

“OUR POLICY SHALL BE THIS:

1. We, the U.S.A., in cooperation with our allies, for reasons of our national safety and in the interests of international morality, are determined to crush and completely destroy the military power of the Axis aggressors, and their satellites regardless of cost, effort and time necessary to accomplish this task.

2. The old world order of colonial oppression, exploitation of dominions, rival imperialism and mercenary balance of power diplomacy; of majesties, dictators, privileged minorities, plutocratic monopolists and similar social parasites; the corrupted order responsible for the present world cataclysm, endangering our national safety and peaceful process, shall never rise again.

3. A New World Moral Order for permanent peace and freedom shall be established at the successful conclusion of the present war.

4. For reasons of history, economic structure, favorable geography and the welfare of mankind, the U.S.A. must, altruistically, assume the leadership of the newly established, democratic world order.

5. To reduce the burden and criminal waste of armaments expenditures everywhere in the world, the U.S.A., with the cooperation of Latin-America, the British Commonwealth of Nations, and the U.S.S.R. shall undertake to guarantee peace to the nations which will be permanently disarmed and demilitarized after the conclusion of the present war.

6. In order to be able, in the fulfillment of our obligations, to effectively prevent the possibility of a recurrence of another world cataclysm, the invincibility of the U.S.A. as a military, naval and air power, shall be the major prerequisite.

7. For realistic considerations of strategy and our invulnerability, it is imperative that the U.S.A. shall obtain relinquishment of controls of their possessions from all foreign Powers in the entire Western Hemisphere, it’s surrounding waters and strategic island outposts as outlined on accompanying map.

8. For considerations of hemispheric defense and in the spirit and tradition of the new Monroe Doctrine of hemispheric solidarity and the “Good Neighbor” policy, the U.S.A. with the consent of the Latin-American Republics, shall obtain control and protectorate rights of the relinquished territories.

9. To strengthen our position in the Caribbean area which is of obvious importance to hemispheric defense, all possible inducements shall be offered to our neighbors of Central America and the West Indies to facilitate their entrance as equal states of the U.S.A. as outlined on map.

10. To fortify the politico-economic unity of the Western Hemisphere, the U.S.A. shall promote and assist the unification of South America into a well organized, democratic, federated “United States of South America.”

11. The liberated British, French and Netherlands Guiana shall be reorganized as one state of the U.S.S.A.

12. All Powers shall relinquish their controls of their colonial, mandate and strategic island possessions everywhere in the world.

13. The British Commonwealth of Nations, the second military and naval Power of importance cooperating in a binding compact with the U.S.A. as a Power for freedom, shall retain and acquire control such territories, peace-security bases and strategic islands outposts essential for the maintenance of world peace and freedom as outlines on the map.

14. The U.S.S.R., the third military Power of importance cooperating with the U.S.A. as a Power for freedom and the maintenance of world peace, shall acquire control of the liberated, disorganized adjacent areas and those of Germany-Austria to be re-educated and eventually incorporated as equal republics of the U.S.S.R., as approximately outlined on map.

15. A world League of Nationalities with arbitration and supervision powers shall be organized.

16. A World Court with punitive powers of absolute boycott, quarantine, blockade and occupation by international police, against lawbreakers of international morality shall be organized.

17. The U.S.A. with the close cooperation of the United States of South America, the British Commonwealth of Nations, the U.S.S.R. and the World League of Nationalities, shall promote and assist in the unification of the relinquished territories and the areas at present unsoundly divided into well organized democratic and absolutely demilitarized republics as approximately on the map.

18. The areas known as Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, Switzerland, France, Spain, Portugal, the island of Corsica, and eventually Italy and the islands of Sardinia and Sicily shall be unified as a demilitarized, federated “United States of Europe.”

19. The areas known as Sweden, Norway, Denmark and the Spitsbergen islands shall be unified as a demilitarized, federated “United States of Scandinavia.”

20. The continent of Africa shall be reorganized and unified as a demilitarized, federated “Union of African Republics.”

21. The areas of Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Hejas, Aden and Oman, shall be unified as a demilitarized union of “Arabian Federated Republics.”

22. The areas known as India, including Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Nepal, Bhutan and Burma shall be unified as a demilitarized “federated Republics of India.”

23. The areas known as China, Inner Mongolia, Tibet, Thailand, Malaya, Indo-China and Korea, shall be unified as a demilitarized, federated “United Republics of China.”

24. The areas known as Greece, Macedonia, Albania, Crete, Dodecanese and adjacent islands in the Aegean sea shall be unified as a demilitarized “Federal Republic of Greece.”

25. The areas known as Eire and Northern Ireland shall be unified as a demilitarized independent republic of “Eire.”

26. The area of the Holy Land of the ancient Hebrews, at present known as Palestine and Trans-Jordan, and the adjacent requisite regions as outlined on map, for considerations of history and the imperative necessity to alleviate a post war refugee problem, shall be unified as a demilitarized republic of “Hebrewland.”

27. The area known as European Turkey, adjacent to the Dardanelles, sea of Marmora and Bosporus, for considerations of realistic peace strategy shall be placed under joint control of the U.S.S.R. and Turkey.

28. The area known as Turkey shall be a demilitarized independent republic of “Turkey.”

29. All problems of exchange, transfer and repatriation of populations shall be administered by the World League of Nationalities.

30. The criminal perpetrators and their partners in guilt of this hideous war shall be brought to justice and unforgettable punishment administered.

31. All subjects of Japan and all persons of Japanese origin of doubtful loyalty shall be expelled from the entire Western Hemisphere, U.S.A. protectorates and strategic island outposts and their property confiscated for post-war reconstruction needs.

32. All subjects of Germany and Italy and all persons of German and Italian origin known as active supporters of Nazi and fascist ideologies shall be treated similarly.

33. German, Italian, Japanese immigration to the Western Hemisphere, its protectorates and island outposts shall be indefinitely stopped.

34. All persons of German origin in East Prussia and the Rhineland shall be transferred to inner Germany and the regions permanently de-Prussianized.

35. All persons of German, Italian and Japanese origin shall be permanently expelled from their now conquered territories and their property confiscated for post-war construction needs.

36. To cleanse the populations of the defeated Axis aggressors of the intoxication of military chauvinism; to effectuate the removal and destruction of their potential military establishments; to recover the accumulated loot and to re-educate them for their eventual membership in the Family of Nations, the areas of Germany-Austria, Italy and Japan shall be hermetically and indefinitely quarantined and administered by appointed Governors subject to supervision by the world League of Nationalities.

37. All resources, industrial and labor capacity of quarantined areas shall be employed for the post war restoration and reconstruction needs.

38. To reduce the numerical power of the aggressor nations, as a potential military advantage, a Population Control Policy shall be elaborated and applied in the quarantined area.

39. In the New World Moral Order which we seek to establish, besides the essential political freedoms, the following fundamental economic changes are imperative:

(a) Nationalization of all natural resources and equitable distribution of same to all nations…everywhere in the world;

(b) Nationalization of international banking, foreign investments, railroads and power plants….everywhere in the world;

(c) Nationalization of all armaments producing establishments by all military powers;

(d) Federal control of foreign commerce and shipping;

(e) The establishment of a world common monetary system;

(f) World wide limitations of interest rates to a maximum of two percent;

40. To retain the victory and leadership of our united democratic effort….the aim of which is not vengeance or exploitation, but freedom and security to all nations for peaceful progress….the unified “Supreme War Command of the United Nations” at the conclusion of the present war, shall be recognized and transformed into a permanent “Supreme Military and Economic Council” collaborating with the World League of Nationalities in post war construction and to enforce world peace.

41. The “Supreme Military and Economic Council” shall appoint the Governors to administer the quarantined areas until their eventual parole.

For this purposeful beginning we must fight until absolute victory.”

Many thanks to the many people who alerted me to this map, including Jack Alexander, David McClelland, Ilya Vinarski, Joel Thibault, Richard Stokes, Goran Zec, Sam Cicero (great name, that), Scott, Brian Truebe, Felix Hippmann, Sam Brodey, Bob G (the Bobbie Gee?) and jfrantz. The map can be found here on this page of the History Department at the University of San Diego.

* A genuine example of a map forged by the Nazis forged for propaganda purposes is this map of South America (#250). A genuine map, drawn up by an American Jew and twisted around by the Nazis for propaganda purposes is one of an ‘extinguished’ Germany (#50).

285 - London’s Lost Rivers

The easiest pub quiz question in the world: name a river that flows through London. Answer: the Thames. A somewhat more difficult question: name another river that flows through London. A few might know of the river Lee (or Lea) that springs near Leagrave in Bedfordshire and joins the Thames at Leamouth in the London borough of Tower Hamlets. But how about: name a third river that flows through London? And a fourth, a fifth, a sixth?

We’d lose all but the more phenomenal pub quiz contestants here, even though there are in actual fact over a dozen natural water courses flowing through Britain’s capital. Many of them played important role in the development of the city, as the location of mills, the source of drinking water and as open sewers. Most of them have been pushed totally underground, forced into culverts, out of sight and out of mind – even if some of them have left their mark on the city’s topology. This map shows and names some of those lost rivers of London, all tributaries to the Thames.

Starting on the rive gauche of the Thames (which in this case means the north bank of the river), those are, west to east:

· Stamford Brook: the confluence of three smaller streams arising in West London, Stamford Brook flows into Hammersmith Creek before discharging into the Thames. Its name comes from ‘stoney ford’, and is remembered in Stamford Brook tube station. The stream was covered by 1900 and is now a sewer.

· Parr’s Ditch: also called Black Bull Ditch, this stream arose north of present-day King Street in Hammersmith, flowing under a bridge at Hammersmith Road and crossing what is now the St Paul’s Court estate to flow into the Thames where now Riverside Studios are.

· Counter’s Creek: arising in Kensal Green and flowing south through Little Wormwood Scrubs, Olympia and Earls Court to Sands End, where it flows into the Thames, Counter’s Creek can still sometimes be spotted by commuters on the westbound platform of West Brompton tube station, but only after heavy rainfall. Its tidal mouth is known as Chelsea Creek. Chelsea FC’s football grounds is known erroneously as Stamford Bridge because of confusion between Counter’s Creek and Stamford Brook.

· Westbourne: flowing from Hampstead through Hyde Park onto Sloane Square and thence into the Thames, the River Westbourne has left its mark on London toponymy, mainly by the other names it has been called through the centuries: Kilburn, Bayswater, Serpentine, Bourne, Westburn Brook, Ranelagh and Ranelagh Sewer. Kilburn and Bayswater nowadays are well-known areas in London. The Serpentine, formed in 1730 to beautify Hyde Park, was fed with the Westbourne’s waters until 1834, by which time it had become too polluted. Another area owing its name to this stream is Knightsbridge – named after a bridge over the Westbourne. It has been driven underground since the 1850s, when the area it flows through was gobbled up by an expanding London. An original part of the pipes it still runs through can be seen above the platform of Sloane Square tube station. At low tide, its mouth can still be seen some 300 yards west of Chelsea Bridge.

· Tyburn: originating in South Hampstead, flowing through St James’s Park and flowing into the Thames near Vauxhall Bridge in Pimlico, the Tyburn once branched to form the island of Thorney, the site of Westminster Abbey.

·Fleet: two springs on Hampstead Heath, directed into two 18th century reservoirs (Highgate and Hampstead Ponds) thereafter combine to form London’s largest underground river. The upper reaches were known as the hollow stream (‘Holborn’ in Anglo-Saxon, hence the name of that London area), its lower reaches as the Fleet (from Anglo-Saxon for ‘estuary’). The Fleet flows under King’s Cross, which was originally known as Battle Bridge, after a place where Queen Boudicca is reputed to have fought the Romans. It ends in the Thames under Blackfriars Bridge. The river gave its name to Fleet Street, which in turn became a collective term for the British press, as most newspapers had their offices there. It almost gave its name to a tube line, but since its opening coincided with the Queen’s silver jubilee, the Fleet Line was named the Jubilee Line. On a quiet moment in front of the Coach and Horses pub in Ray Street, Farringdon, you can still hear the Fleet’s flow through the grating. Another slightly more dangerous location for Fleet-spotting is the grid in the center of Charterhouse Street where it joins Farringdon Road.

· Walbrook: starting in Finsbury, flowing straight through the middle of the most ancient part of the city and into the Thames at Cannon Street Railway Bridge, this river’s name might derive from the fact that it flowed through or under the wall of Londinium, the Roman settlement on the site of present-day London. Legend has it that when London fell to the Saxons, these forced the original Celtic inhabitants to live on the east side of the river, while they lived on the west side of it – resulting in the still noticeable difference between London’s affluent West End and a more working-class East End.

· Black Ditch: possibly rising near Spitalfields, this river ran to Mile End, curving into Poplar to end in the Thames at Limehouse Dock. It may have been known by other names but by the late 18th century, it was called the Black Ditch.

Streams joining the Thames on its south bank are, west to east:

· Beverley Brook: rising at Cuddington Recreation Park in Worcester Park, Beverley Brook flows through Wimbledon Common, Richmond Park and Barnes and joins the Thames at Barn Elms, near Putney Bridge. Its name derives from the presence of the European beaver, extinct in Britain since the 16th century.

· Wandle: the Wandle springs from two sources: one of the Waddon Ponds in Croydon and another at Carshalton Ponds. It flows through Sutton, Lambeth, Merton and finally Wandsworth, where it joins the Thames. Both Wandsworth and the Wandle get their names from Wendle, a Saxon who settled in the area. Exceptionally among London’s ‘lost’ rivers, the Wandle is not subterranean for most of its length. Springing at Thornton Heath as the Norbury Brook, the river Graveney joins the Wandle near Summerstown.

· Falcon: the Falconbrook, or Falcon, springs on Tooting Bec Common, flows under Balham and enters the Thames at Battersea. It burst out of the pavement of Falcon Road (named after the stream) in Clapham Junction in July 2007 during floods that affected large parts of England.

· Effra: derived from the Celtic word for torrent (compare, in Welsh, ‘ffrydlif’), the Effra rises from multiple sources, among others in Crystal Palace and near Westow Hill, flowing under Half Moon Lane in North Dulwich, towards Herne Hill train station, from there towards Brixton’s Coldharbour Lane, Brixton Road, on to Kennington and then ending in the Thames, near Vauxhall Bridge. In 1992, an arts project sparked a campaign to unearth the Effra.

· Neckinger: rising in Southwark, the Neckinger joins the Thames via St Saviour’s Dock, where pirates were hanged in the 17th century. The river’s name may derive from the term ‘devil’s neckcloth’ (i.e. the noose). In the 19th century, the mouth of the Neckinger was known as Jacob’s Island, a place of great poverty and squalor, described as the very capital of cholera and the Venice of drains. Charles Dickens lets one of his best-known characters, Bill Sykes (from Oliver Twist) meet a violent death in the mud of the Dock.

· Peck: the Peck, springing in East Dulwich and running through Peckam, was enclosed in 1823. It can still be seen on the west side of Peckham Rye Park.

· Ravensbourne: the River Ravensbourne rises at Caesar’s Well in Keston, flows through Bromley, Lewisham and Greenwich and is joined by several tributaries, among which the beautifully named River Quaggy (also known as Kyd Brook). It ends in the Thames in Greenwich Reach (also known as Deptford Creek), west of Greenwich proper. In 1580, Queen Elizabeth I knighted Francis Drake on board the Golden Hind in Deptford Creek after his circumnavigation of the globe.

Many thanks to Alex Burke who sent in this map which can be found here on the Open Guide to London.

 

 

284 - United Germanic States

To the right of this postcard, a romantic Germanic warrior (if that isn’t an oxymoron) anachronistically admires a postcard-romantic German village from what looks to be around the 18th or 19th century.

The countries floating in the sky like so many proverbial castles together configure die Vereinigte Germanische Staaten (the United Germanic States) – a pipe-dream aspired to by at least some German nationalists around the beginning of the 20th century, to which this map can be traced.

This 1906 map shows a Mitteleuropa at its most Germanic, with Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Dutch-speaking parts of the Low Countries, England, Ireland, the Baltic states and Scandinavia (also including a lighter-shaded Finland) and North America (i.e. Canada and the USA) as parts of the UGS.

This Germanic superstate would not be a Germany modelled on the US, quite the contrary: not a union based on the rule of law, the love of freedom and the pursuit of happiness, but a coalition of states whose Boden was dominated by Germanic Blut, even if that dominance would have been difficult to enforce democratically. This would have been the rule of tradition, the love of authoritarianism and the pursuit of racial purity. And in fact, something like that happened in Europe not too many decades later…

This map was taken at this page of Deutsche Schutzgebiete, a website dedicated to the former German colonies.

 

283 – Heaven Is An Amusement Park That Never Closes

“Heaven is a place,” sang the Talking Heads, “where nothing ever happens.” Not so in this version of the Afterlife. This is what Heaven might have looked like in the Divina Commedia had Dante not been a medieval Italian intellectual, but a contemporary Californian comic artist, like Malachi Ward, who drew this map. In Ward’s vision, Heaven is a place very similar to your local amusement park. Only better: it never closes, you don’t ever have to leave!

Beyond the Pearly Gates (emblazoned with the slogan You Did It!) is a Nu-Body Machine (1), instantly providing everybody with the body they’ve been trying to shape into while still alive. Catholics are welcome to Heaven, but are confined to a small section next to the entrance (2) where they can indulge their semi-idolatrous tendencies at the Throne of Mary (3). Others can try their hand (and their wings) at Angel Boot Camp (4), which is “great for Pentecostals and Charismatics.”

Those less inclined towards spiritual war could go for the snack bar (5), the marital coitus castle (6), the go carts (7), the dinosaur petting zoo (8) or Joab’s candy shop (9). Joab, a nephew of King David and eventually killed at his behest, was mainly known for his martial exploits, not for his sweet tooth.

Evil is not completely out of view in this Heaven: in fact, the Damned Viewer (10) allows you to visually check up on “Adolf Hitler, your philandering boss, the smug atheist next door and all the vile people you hate” get their comeuppance in the ‘other’, decidedly less amusing place. Maybe in Hell there’s a similar viewer, showing the Throne of God and Jesus (11) and the place where people can line up to sit, as if he were a giant Santa, on God’s lap.

And there’s more. Go to Family Land to chew the fat with pre-deceased loved ones (but wouldn’t you eventually bump into them anyway elsewhere in the park?). Visit the Arena of Answers, where the Illuminatron will tell you who really shot JFK, RFK and MLK. Go to Memory Land to relive your own finest moments or, if your existence was less than extraordinary, to Fantasy Land to relive somebody else’s. In the Hall of Heroes, visit with Abraham Lincoln, Moses and Princess Diana (among others). Visit America Land, where it’s always Memorial or Veterans’ Day.

Many thanks to Paul Hoppe for sending in this map, which can be found here on a blog called Hunting and Gathering with Malachi Ward. Click on the map to enlarge.

282 - A Cheese Map of Canada

The title of Daniel Mansfield’s email was ‘Cheese Map of Canada’, so I immediately thought it would be a variation on the bread map of France (described earlier on this blog as #94).

But the culinary component of his cartography is in its substance rather than its subject. In that manner, it is more reminiscent of ‘Jamerica’ (#268).

As Mr Mansfield himself relates: “I was eating lunch one day with my girlfriend and was eating slices from a block of marble cheese. I was eating a piece of cheese when I noticed that one piece that I had cut, after taking a bite, looked like one of the Canadian provinces (Alberta or Saskatchewan, they’re mostly rectangular anyways).”

“We were close to the end of the block, so I decided to save that piece of cheese and carve the rest of the block into individual provinces with a butter knife. I arranged them into their proper geographic locations and took (this) picture.”