Thursday, May 13, 2010

Time Lines

 I discovered this link to these maps of the geological history of the Mississippi River and was awed by the sheer beauty of the work that Harold Fisk created through the attempt to document the thousands of years record of the meandering river.
It's calligraphic, abstract and formal at the same time. This particular map in the series is from  cape Giradeau, MO to Donaldsonville, LA, Plate 22-10. Really worth checking out.
Harold N. Fisk's 1944 monumental tome on nature at its most mundane and sublime is, amazingly, available online and free. Landscape architects in every specialty have much to glean from it, not the least of which are water engineering techniques, ecological and geological processes, graphic representation, and the ideological and philosophical implications of reconstructing the Mississippi River.

The maps, scanned at high resolution and full scale, are some of the most beautiful I've seen.

The following files are hosted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

1. Geological Investigation of the Alluvial Valley of the Lower Mississippi River - Fisk, 1944 Report (197MB)
2. Oversized Plates - Fisk, 1944 Report (686MB)
3. Oversized Plates Rectified - Fisk, 1944 Report (369MB)

1 comment:

mud_rake said...

Whoa! Yes, indeed, Microdot, works of art. I have always been fascinated with maps and I believe that, in a former life, I must have been assigned as scout and map-maker for my neolithic tribe wandering through the forests of northern Europe.

Great thanks for the links!