That is very cool....and it brought up memories. For I am certain that this map is the same as the one (the sea monsters are the same as I remember)that was printed onto a wooden globe my parents used to have when I was a kid. I used to love spinning it and looking at the sea monsters and trying to pronounce the names of the land masses:-) They don't have that globe anymore as that it burned in fire that broke out in the garage.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
One day not long ago, a beautiful brick landed on my desk, a thick, fat illustrated book called "Map: Exploring The World." I used GPS and went about a mile from our studios to meet one of the men behind this work. I found John Hessler in his native habitat.
JOHN HESSLER: Right now, you're standing deep underground in the Madison Building of the Library of Congress in the middle of the stacks of the geography and map division, the largest map collection in the world.
SHAPIRO: Five-and-a-half million maps live here. John Hessler is one of the map keepers. He wrote the introduction to this new book which covers 3,500 years of maps. The vault we're standing in is a city block long, entirely filled with drawers, shelves and globes.
HESSLER: Anything cartographic resides in this room.
SHAPIRO: And yet, ironically, this looks like a room that it would be easy to get lost in.
HESSLER: It would certainly be easy to get lost here. There's no question about it. But we could give you a map to find your way out.
Note: link is to a transcript -- there should also be a link to a stream or podcast of the program.
That would be fun. There's a challenge suggestion of pixelpig's in the queue titled "Monsters, Monstrosities, & Misfits". That might be the way to go...
That would be fun. There's a challenge suggestion of pixelpig's in the queue titled "Monsters, Monstrosities, & Misfits". That might be the way to go...
