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<DIV>There is a book edited by Isabel Laboulais-Lesage, <EM>Combler les blancs
de la carte. Modalites et enjeux des savoirs geographiques (xvii-xx siecle)
</EM>( Strasbourg, Presses Universitaires de Strasbourg, 2004). </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>[apologies for missing accents] This may have something of interest
if you are looking for the history of the filling of empty spaces.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Catherine Delano-Smith</DIV>
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<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=batchelo@georgiasouthern.edu
href="mailto:batchelo@georgiasouthern.edu">Robert Batchelor</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, February 25, 2014 6:05 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=Joost.Depuydt@stad.Antwerpen.be
href="mailto:Joost.Depuydt@stad.Antwerpen.be">Joost.Depuydt@stad.Antwerpen.be</A>
; <A title=ishm@lazarus.elte.hu
href="mailto:ishm@lazarus.elte.hu">ishm@lazarus.elte.hu</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> [ISHMap-List] Blank Spots</DIV></DIV></DIV>
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<DIV><SPAN class=Apple-style-span
style="FONT-SIZE: 13px; FONT-FAMILY: arial,sans-serif; BORDER-COLLAPSE: collapse">Which
where the last blank spots to be filled on the world map?<BR>When where they
filled?</SPAN><BR></DIV>
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<DIV>That seems like a difficult question to answer because it is
definitional. For example, is the ocean a blank space? Is this
merely a question about coastlines?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Conrad has a famous passage about the end of the blank space in Heart of
Darkness, which concludes, "True, by this time it was not a blank space any
more. It had got filled since my boyhood with rivers and lakes and names. It had
ceased to be a blank space of delightful mystery—a white patch for a boy to
dream gloriously over. It had become a place of darkness." The reference
is often assumed to be to Winwood Reade's 1873 "Map of African
Literature". (<A
href="http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/maps/websites/africa/explorers.html"
target=_blank>http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/maps/websites/africa/explorers.html</A>).</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Antartica was almost always partially blank well into the 1950's on most
commercial maps, but the fashion shifted towards both filling in space and to
not showing parts of Antartica that were uncertain--cf. the National Geographic
World Map of 1960 for example which at points almost appears medieval in its
annotations. But I suspect that there were still maps in the 60's and 70's
with blank spaces in Antartica and elsewhere. After 1972, landsat and even
before that aerial photography allowed for at least the illusion of
comprehensiveness, and the problem then becomes the level of generality.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I suspect with Google Earth, we now have blurred spots rather than blank or
dark spots. Notice, with the Arc-GIS ocean basemap (<A
href="http://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=5ae9e138a17842688b0b79283a4353f6">http://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=5ae9e138a17842688b0b79283a4353f6</A>)
what happens when you look closely at the eastern half of the Ross or the
southern and eastern parts of the Weddell seas. They aren't blank, but
some parts are rather impressionistic compared to others. White swaths of
snow and ice, map projections and frames, can provide cover in the way that sea
serpents, crests and really large compass roses once did in the ocean.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Hope that helps,</DIV>
<DIV>Bob Batchelor</DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>-- <BR>Robert Batchelor<BR>Associate Professor of
History<BR>Georgia Southern University<BR>Forest Drive Building (Office
1211)<BR>PO 8054<BR>Statesboro, GA 30460<BR>Phone: <A href="tel:912-660-6613"
target=_blank value="+19126606613">912-660-6613</A><BR>FAX: <A
href="tel:912-478-0377" target=_blank value="+19124780377">912-478-0377</A>
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