Erin: Welcome to T2A webchat for 21 November 2007.  We’re meeting Vincent Virga to learn about a stunning array of 200 of the most beautiful, important, and fascinating maps in existence. Mr. Virga is the picture editor and author of Cartographia Mapping Civilization. It draws on the Library of Congress's 5.2 million maps and 60,000 atlases. These maps show how our idea of the world has shifted and grown over time, and each map tells its own unique story about nations, politics, and ambitions.

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Vincent: Hello everyone I want to explain why a book about maps would come from the Library of Congress. I'm often asked why the Library of Congress -- LOC has 5.2 million maps. First there are about 136 million items at the LOC -- why? The library itself was founded in 1800, making it the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Everything you could imagine is at the Library. This is because during the War of 1812 the British burned down the Capitol building where the Library was originally housed. At that time it was very small about 3000 volumes and some maps. The Library approached Thomas Jefferson whose library had almost 6500 books and asked if he would sell it to them and Jefferson agreed on the condition that the Library be kept current. Jefferson's books covered many things, in several languages, with maps and engravings -- he had a great eclectic collection and he believed there should be no knowledge unavailable to our legislatures in the United States. Over the centuries the Library has grown and grown and grown. The copyright department requests two copies of everything submitted for copyrighting. The reason for this is in fact to have one copy registering the material sent to the Library and to have one copy available to the public. The Library is called America's Memory. It is the last of its kind because anyone 18 years of age or older can enter the Library and ask to see whatever they wish to see. The other great libraries require letters of intent, book contracts, and letters from universities verifying that indeed the researcher is serious. For the LOC, being a person curious about something makes you a serious person. So my book actually grew out of the collections in a very particular way.

I first came to the LOC to do a book called Eyes of the Nation, which was to celebrate the creation of the various divisions. In 1897 all of that material that had amassed at the Library was given its own home in the Thomas Jefferson building. It was also divided up into its various types so the maps went into the geography and map division, the engravings and photography went into the prints and photographs division, material devoted to the Middle East, Africa, Japan was all set into its own area studies. My book was to be a visual history of the United States. At the first meeting with the curators Ronald Grim was introduced to me as the Library's cartographic historian. I said, 'Oh, I don't get maps. In fact I suffer from cartofobia. I don't understand them, I can't read road maps, I never use maps.' Also, most historians are visually illiterate and most people who write about maps are visually illiterate. The map people are only concerned with how, when and where the map was made. They never tell me why it was made. So Ron despairingly put his head on the table and said, 'This is the story of my life.' He then set out to teach me about maps and that's when I began to understand that maps are about people, culture, and society and in essence, maps are cultural landscapes. Maps are also time machines and snapshots of human consciousness. So for me suddenly I was in love with maps. I store information visually. If you ask me where my glasses are, I see them, I don't talk to myself, I see my glasses. Many others are like me. Well a map stores information visually, so it made perfect sense to me once I understand they are archival devices. I still don't read a road map. Basically what happened was I began to wonder how cultures expressed themselves in maps. One of the first maps Ron showed me was a map by a man named Ruysch, made in 1507 and it uses the second century ptolemic or three-part world, Asia, Africa and Europe. Ruysch had heard that Columbus had bumped into something that was not supposed to be there. Columbus thought when he left Europe he would sail straight across and bump into Asia but he bumed into something else and when word came back Ruysch did not know what to do with that information. So when you look at the Ruysch map you will see the three-part world and a new piece of land that Ruysch sticks under Asia and above the Tropic of Cancer, on which he notes we don't know what this is yet, how big it is or which way it strands. When I saw that map I realized that what I was looking at was a state of mind, what I call a map as delusional moment.

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Mustafa Cankurt: How are three-dimensional maps produced? Another question: Some countries borders are linear lines like Syria and Jordan and some African countries. Did the countries’ leaders draw these borders? Mustafa, Turkey

Vincent: On three-dimensional maps, they can be traced back to the early Chinese form of mapping which we call birds' eye views. Their purpose was to give us a sense of perspective while looking down on the earth. Very much like the eye of Apollo -- the God of the Sun, whom Greeks believed that when we looked at a map we experienced what Apollo did when he look down on earth from the sun. So maps for Greeks were a form of meditation. The modern 3-D map relies on modern technology, NASA has space images, Google Earth -- they have transformed the way we map the world. The art form of the birds' eye view has disappeared.

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Wally Mesquita: I'm Wally from Toronto, Ontario. Are there geological data maps that show aquifers, and others mineral resources and can such data be used for political purposes?

Vincent: Yes, there's a whole school of mapping that deals with this information. The Germans were masters and the British as well used it for coal mining, some of the most famous maps are in my book. One geological map is from southwestern England from one of the LOC's most beautiful atlases, from 1815, which was the first geological atlas of England. This information is available everywhere. These maps are critical to the understanding of urban environments. In fact New York City has maps form the 1840's still used by architects today. Manhattan Island was full of streams and ponds and full lakes. When it was flattened in order to impose the grid system, all of those water systems were covered but not stopped. My friend has a brownstone house on 7th Street in Manh that was built in 1842. It has a basement and a sub-basement that has a stream that runs through it in the spring. I tell this story because the maps of that geological information are essential to understanding the areas, so these maps are as I say readily available anywhere. There is nothing at the LOC except for the original manuscript maps -- nothing that is not available elsewhere. Much of the material that has been digitized can be seen at www.loc.gov

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Marcien Fossuo: Europeans are developing their own global positioning system, Galileo. What'll be the main differences between U.S. GPS and European Galileo in terms of delivering maps? In other words what could we expect from Galileo we couldn't get with U.S. GPS. Thank you.

Vincent: Thank you Marcien. I'm not the expert on this so please allow me to refer you to the Library of Congress to seek the appropriate resources for your answer. Or you could try to email Ronald Grim, my co-author who heads the Leventhal Maps Collection at the Boston Public Library.

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Wondwossen, Ethiopia (email): How has the debate about underwater borders affected cartography?

Vincent: There is a map in my book -- plate 187 called New Zealand Territorial Sea and Exclusive Economic Zone, from 1983. It is based on the law of the Sea Convention, which includes 150 countries convened under the United Nations. This is a very important question because the rights are three-dimensional -- 12 nautical miles around New Zealand from the low water mark of the coast is called The Territorial Sea. That is their property. Then there is the Exclusive Economic Zone, that is 200 nautical miles. The countries are claiming that they own the territory down to the earth's core and up to the sky. This is the reason the British fought for the Falklands (Malvinas) in 1982, because the attached area to the Falklands is three times the size of the islands. The high seas are outside any national jurisdiction. The United States has more than 30 maritime boundary disputes currently going on and after many many years has finally settled the disputes with the Canada. This is all about oil rights, gas rights; huge amounts of money are at stake. The United States has properties all over the world -- islands -- each one could be sitting on an oil field. So this issue of underwater borders has become enormously important.

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Sean: Now that we have satellite imaging, do you think we are losing the unique stories maps drawn by hand give us?

Vincent: Yes, this is what my book is about. One of the most extraordinary maps in the book is a stick map from Micronesia. It is in fact a map that shows the surface of the sea, using sticks and tiny shells to mark the islands. Mark Twain in his book Life on the Mississippi discusses the fact that the steamboat captains memorized the surface of the Mississippi River. If the currents were different from what they remembered, they knew that something had happened -- a tree might have fallen into the river -- a sand bar might suddenly have appeared. These changes could possibly mean the difference between life and death. The people of Micronesia literally memorized the surface of the ocean for hundreds and hundreds of miles. They could see on the surface of the sea how close they were to islands by the ripple effect. They also memorized the winds so they could read on the surface of the sea, the directions of the winds and they traveled in their small boats in the open sea with a living relationship to the world around them. The stick charts are an example of one of the most profound relationships humans have ever had with nature. In 1880 the British admiralty arrived with drawn sea charts, using longitude and latitude. In one generation the stick charts were abandoned. No one today can read them. The whole world of map making where people expressed their social and political agendas in maps is now pretty much on hold. Governments still make maps where places are omitted in case there might be some political repercussions. The most current example is Chinese maps no longer include Tibet. So the way we express ourselves in maps will never change, however it has been seriously altered.

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Dr. (Col.) V.K. Wadia, India (email): How many of the maps in the book are based on hard irrefutable facts, how many are based on logical deduction, and how many are based on a native intellectual innovativeness?

Vincent: What do you mean by facts first of all? France as a nation was created by the facts that suited the King of France who made his country an extension of his body -- by relying upon the religious understanding of Europeans that St. Augustine's City of God was made manifest by the Body of Christ. Therefore St. Augustine's City of Man could be made manifest by the divine body of the King. Henry used maps in a way no other head of state had done before him. He settled disputes with maps. He defined boundaries for the first time with maps and remember, once the map was printed, it existed in reality. The British with their maps created India as a single entity. For the first time Europeans thought of that immense sub-continent as one entity, as opposed to the Indies and the Mogul Empire. This raises the question, why is Europe a continent? India is bigger than the European so-called continent. Maps are about power. Maps are about domination, which is something the Europeans learned how to do very quickly, by using maps. Other maps of India for example are the Great Trigonometrical Survey of 1800 to 1843. What we have is England measuring every foot of India. The map that I chose is the index to that survey and what you see is what to me looks like chains so that map became the symbol of Colonialism.

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Andrian Avalomalala, Madagascar (email): How does cartography work?

Vincent: I assume you mean how are maps made, which is a wonderful question. It is the very first question I asked of my colleagues at the Library of Congress. I will say it isn't easy. And it still is one of the great human achievements, turning space into place. The intellectual process of transforming experience in space to abstraction of space is a revolution in modes of thinking. Humanity's collective history of mapping the whole world can be paralleled with the child psychiatrist Jean Piaget's three-fold developmental theory of the individual. First, perceptions and representation of abilities are not matched; only the simplest topographical relationships are presented, without regard for perspective or distances. Then an intellectual realism evolves, one that depicts everything known with burgeoning proportional relationships. And finally, a 'visual realism' appears, advocating scientific calculations to achieve it. Mapping is arguably fundamental to humanity's cognitive make up. It reveals the spiritual bonds between all the people on earth.

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Mustafa Cankurt: I’m keenly interest in geography. Sometimes I try to draw a map but nevertheless don't like original printings maps. How can I draw best scale maps? Mustafa, Turkey

Vincent: Perhaps you could go to your local library and find books that will teach you. I believe everything can be found in a book. I've also discovered that drawing maps is so normal for us as human beings that the desire to do it will inspire and help the achievement. Perspective is one of the most extraordinary visual experiences. By studying paintings you can sharpen your perspective. The movies will also help with visual literacy.

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Erin: In what ways does map-making differ around the world?

Vincent: That's the subject of my book. It is divided into continents and I examined the way each one of the countries expresses itself in maps. For example, the Chinese have five directions, north, south, east, west and center. Each of us is always at the center of our own landscape. However the Chinese have taken that position and drawn maps accordingly so that mountain ranges ring the entire map and you can turn the map around from the various points of view in order to read it. The Chinese also will draw maps in the tradition of Feng Shui so that Hainan Island becomes a rectangle which is the most fortuitous way to depict it. Islamic maps are comprised of geometrical shapes because the mapmakers expressed an Islamic cosmic reality in two languages, Arabic and Geometry. Pythagorean theories of mathematical structure as the form of things so that for me Islamic maps are a form of prayer. Indigenous African maps use symbols to capture the shared consciousness of place and demonstrate the most sophisticated grasp of vast areas of forests and rivers. They also display a profound commitment to guarding their individual identities as people. There is no such thing as an African. There are several thousand individual communities, which were ignored when the European powers sliced up the continent to satisfy their own greed, which is why some of the boundaries in African countries are perfectly straight lines imposed on the surface of the earth in order to mark territory. So maps definitely are an expression of the various people who made them. The Japanese map will sometimes enlarge an item to show its importance. This is a direct descendant of the Chinese map. However the genius of the Chinese people has always been the ability to absorb and transform information, just it is the genius of the Arab people. Originally the Arabs only had one art form, poetry. And as they became a great power under the Islamic Regime in 700, they absorbed everything around them, including their geography. They invented Algebra and they transformed everything they touched, as have the Japanese.

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Erin: That wraps T2A webchat. Our thanks to Vincent Virga and to you for joining us. You can see the entire chat transcript on our webpage www.voanews.com/t2a We hope you can join our special edition webchat on Pakistan’s political crisis – Monday, November 26th at 1630 hours universal time. VOA Correspondent Barry Newhouse in Islamabad and political scientist Hassan Abbas of Harvard University will discuss the situation and its implications. Professor Abbas is a former Pakistani government official who served in the administrations of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and President Pervez Musharraf. That’s Monday, November 26th at 1630 universal time on voanews.com See you then!