Page 14 November, 1974 Where to get maps This article is continued from last month (Rain, VoL 1, Issue 1). THE COAST AND GEODETIC SURVEY has made triangulations on which all other maps are based, for much of the world; this data is of interest only to specialists. Their better-known activities include maps of all coastal areas, rather narrowly oriented to the needs of boatmen. The projection is always Mercator .and the range of sizes and scales is chaotic. Don't even think of buying this series unless most of your outdoor activity is on the water. Now let's move on to still another Federal agency in the wholesale mapping business: the Bureau of Land Management. Oregon contains an immense acreage of BLM land, both west-side and east-side. The east side has been the subject of two available mappings. One is at the two-mile-per-inch scale and is divided on the basis of the Federal sutvey, in oblongs 30 miles deep by 36 miles wide (that's six ranges of five townships). The series is beautifully printed in color, showing Federal land unmistakably. For a long time these maps sold at a dollar, but recently the price went down to 25 cents each. A good buy. A second series was just launched In this series, eastern Oregon is dissected along latitude-longitude lines in 3~minute units. Scale is mile-per-inch. The result is a map about 35 by.25 inches in size, on a monstrous piece of paper which presents a real problem in its care and presetvation. The low price, 50 cents per sheet, is made possible by absence of color-printing. Ownerships are shown by a code letter in the corner of each tract: P for private, various other letters for the various public agencies. Contours are not shown, but each canyon is located by its central stream, rimrocks and summits are shown, and all in all this series is a wonderful buy if you can surmount STATE OF O'REGON . ' -r----r~...., ,, I '---oo- i ~· · ........ ! ) I ~-- - -1 \ : J\. \ I _._ _ -- ~------ ..-!,.""'! _ J - 1- ..,.,-.;;:;, - ~ w w the problem of large, unwieldy sheets. My own decision has-been, to Approximate dissect each 3~minute quad into sixteenths (7¥2-minute quads) and locations of geothermal leasing on Federal lands in Oregon. mount these in a standard ring-binder. A lot of trouble, particularly as the useful 7Y:rminute corners are not shown but have to be developed by use of a meter-stick and lots of arithmetic. In return for my efforts I shall have a portable, accessible, not easily damageable mapping of thousands of interesting square miles. It is my idea that a good map, like a good dog, should accompany its owner into the field not once, but many, many times. The BLM has free handout-maps for several recreational areas; the items go into and out of print, so I can only mention a sampling: Fisherman's Bend, Steens Mountain, Siuslaw resource area, and so on. Since BLM and Forest Service timber is often interlaced most bewilderingly in Western Oregon, one wonders why the two agencies could not surmount the "paper curtain" which separates all Federal departments from one another, and turn out excellent maps in collaboration rather than two parallel and (on the whole) inadequate series. A start has been made: the two agencies have collaborated on an excellent free detailed map of the .wild part of the Rogue River. For Western Oregon in general, the BLM has a fairly good cov-, erage of maps, one for each of their "regions." Unfortunately, three of the most important regions' maps have been allowed to go out of print, but we are promised an early return. Scale is the stingy 2-milesper-inch; price ranges between $1 and $2; detail, except in the Federal land itself (which in most versions is nicely colored), is from poor to wretched. One wonders if the new 3~minute mile-per-inch series is going to be extended to Western Oregon; my last inquiry received a noncommittal reply. The BLM makes large-scale township maps (1000 feet per inch) of all townships in which it has holdings. These are fine for the Federal land itself; undependable outside it. Cost is $1 or $2 per sheet (large sheet, 31 x 31 inches plus margin). There are many other Federal agencies that produce maps: maps of census tracts, of post office routes, of dams and drainage basins, and so on and on. Unfortunately there are no good public maps of rural postal delivery routes; a private firm makes these. We can begin our story of mapping by state agencies with the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries. Often in collaboration with the Federal Geological Survey, they map areas of geological interest. These are of concern only to the specialist, in the main. However, in some cases the base map is an old thing, somewhat historic, which is otherwise unobtainable, and sometimes the scale will be a non-standard (but useful) one. Their price list can be seen, and their library used, in the State Office Building in Portland The State Forestry Department operates out of Salem, they've a headquarters just across from the pen there, and district headquarters at various spots such as Forest Grove. Like the BLM, they produce a close-up map of each township in which they own or manage any land; in the case of State Forestry I think these large close-ups e unavailable to the public. For public use they produce two-mileper-inchers of which the best known is the one of Northwestern Oregon. Its coverage of the farming areas is poor, but when you get into the hill country where the state land is, you'll find this map hard to beat. State land is shown by a green tint. Sells at $1.50 or so; you can pick it up at the Forest Grove headquarters. Don't be without it if the northern Coast Range is your stamping-ground State Parks is a department within the Highway Division and is headquartered in the Highway Building, Salem. They produce a sketch map for each of the larger state parks. State Highways has a large map department, in the basement of the Highway Building, and they produce several series available to the public at low prices. These mappings seem to be partially Federal Department of Transportation attempts to secure a degree of uniformity as between state and state. Such attempts are not entirely successfuL The Washington series of county road maps, for example, while theoretically half-inch-per-mile, are in actuality about 15/32 of an inch to the mile, and they cannot be matched with the corresponding Oregon series, also theoretically half-inch per mile, but in reality something like 13/32 of an inch to the mile. The unit in these series is in each case the county, as one would surmise, except that the larger counties are dissected into two or more sheets. Harney county, for example, runs to 13 sheets. Because of this dissection, the series is not as inexpensive as at first would appear. Each county, or rather each sheet, costs around .30 cents. This applies to the medium or desk-top version, around half an inch to the mile. There's also a wall version at a dollar, and an illegible notebooksized version at 10 cents. Detail is surprisingly good, especially in the Oregon series. The Washington series I find somewhat more pedestrian, timid, and less artistic, but still a fairly good buy. I'm experimenting with a paste-up of most or all of these road maps, cutting them apart on standard latitude-longitude lines. This makes a more "wieldy" series and is a useful adjunct for the published Federal quadrangles (and a substitute where the latter are lacking). The county series is eked out by a group of enlargements for the congested areas of each county, running to many pages for such counties as Multnomah and Marion. One views these enlargements with mixed feelings; obviously a lot of work went into them. I feel that, as maps, they are more or less failures, as their background of fuzzy air-photos obscures the road net and the lettering without adding very much information of a detailed kind. The Highway Division's city series, on the other hand, is a real gem of a mapping, consisting of clear, accurate drawings and lettering. Don't overlook the State Highway Department's free highway map of the state. It is revised each spring and is on a par·with the best gas-company state maps. In addition, it shows the exact boundaries of the several state forests. When we tum from federal and state map ing to the efforts
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz