The Physiographic Method of Representing Scenery on Maps

Abstract

T RHERE is one problem in cartography which has not yet been solved to general satisfaction and which is a very important one: the depiction of the scenery of large areas on small-scale maps. Most of our school maps show contour lines with or without color tints. Excellent as this method is on detailed topographic sheets, where every mountain can be shown individually, it fails when it has to be generalized for a small-scale map of a large area. Nor does the other common method, hachuring, serve better. On topographic sheets it shows the steepness of the surfaces if the Lehmann system is rigorously applied, but in maps of countries and continents the hachure lines deteriorate into caterpillars. Contour lines give us at least one important fact; they enable us to read the elevation above sea level. But elevation is only one factor and not the most important. The main effect of altitude is upon the climate, and this can be expressed by direct climatic maps. For the study of settlement, land utilization, or any other aspect of man's occupation of the earth it is more important to have information about the ruggedness, trend, and character of mountains, ridges, plains, plateaus, canyons, and so on-in a word, the physiography of the region.