Brussels International Map Collectors' Circle

Recently

Saturday 13 December 2008

BIMCC Study Session

Brussels

• Francis Herbert (Former Curator of maps at the Royal Geographical Society): Maps on the north pole. He has updated his thesis and presented the evolution of maps of the north pole, from the imaginary black stone from Mercator to a more realistic view, namely masses of packed ice blocking the entrance of the Bering Straits. He describeed the failed passage trials to the east and west.
• H. Decleir (Prof. Geography, VU Brussels): North pole maps in the future. Our generation is witnessing for the first time how climate is changing the earth and will ultimately necessitate new maps. Ice is melting fast. Already a passage to the west of the Arctic looks feasible in our lifetime - the one to the east will be witnessed by our children. This is already leading to the creation of not only new landscape maps but also geological ones due to the presence of oil under the north pole.
• Martijn Storms (Curator Bodel Nyenhuis Collection Leiden): Compass-windroses. He led us through the world of the wind and compass roses. He also traced them back to their regional origin and told us whether there is a connection with the rhumb lines on portolans.
• Peter van der Krogt (Prof. Utrecht University): Latin and cartography. This was a practicle session and not a grammatical course. He translated and commented short Latin cartouche texts. He has distributed copies of a superb article on the use of Latin on maps (available in Dutch and English).
• Eric Leenders (M.D.) and Jan De Graeve (Surveyor and historian in surveying techniques): Topography in practice. They demonstrated the true first topographical trials by triangulation realised by J. van Deventer on his regional maps.

Where our readers are …