Revolutions in Mapping

and has produced the first maps of the mountains of the planet Venus. And a combination of sonar and radar produces charts of the seafloor, putting much of Earth on the map for the first time. 'Suddenly it's a whole different world for us,' says Joel Morrison, chief of geography at the U.S. Bureau of the Census, 'Our future as mapmakers even ten years from now - is uncertain.' B The world's largest collection of maps resides in the basement of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The collection, consisting of up to 4.6 million map sheets and 63,000 atlases, includes magnificent bound collections of elaborate maps- the pride of the golden age of Dutch cartography. In the reading room scholars, wearing thin cotton gloves to protect the fragile sheets, examine ancient maps with magnifying glasses. Across the room people sit at their computer screens, studying the latest maps, with their prodigious memories, computers are able to store data about people, places and environments the stuff of maps and almost instantly information is displayed on the screen in the desired geographic context, and at the click of a button, a print-out of the map appears. C Measuring the spherical Earth ranks as the first major milestone…