Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks by Ken Jennings
Book: Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks by Ken Jennings
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Authors: Ken Jennings
Tags: General, Social Science, Reference, Technology & Engineering, Human Geography, Atlases, Cartography, Atlases & Gazetteers, Trivia
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from a back road, and none had logged the spot in accordance with strict Degree Confluence Project guidelines—that is, with the permission of the landowner.
Which is why I tracked down Rodger. He seems unflustered byhis newfound claim to fame. “I knew the property was on the forty-eight-north line, but I had no idea about the—confluence, you called it?” But when I ask if I can visit the all-important square foot of land, I find out that it won’t be possible for months. Rodger is a cook on a tugboat currently bound for Hawaii and then Wake Island—one of the Travelers’ Century Club’s most troublesome destinations, if you’ll recall. “I’ll call you when I get back,” he promises.
I expect never to hear from him again, but two months later, Rodger’s as good as his word. “When do you want to come up and see 48/122?” he asks. That very weekend, he and I are out trampling the ferns at the end of his driveway, swinging our respective GPS receivers around like blind men with white canes. Just like geocaching, only without anything tangible waiting to be found.
“Near as I can tell, it’s right here,” says Rodger finally. “Zero zero zero. All zeroes.”
I wonder if I will feel some lightning crackle of Global Significance when I stand on the magic point, but nothing happens. I dutifully take a picture of the fateful ferns. Just as with the roadgeeks, attention must be paid.
“Do you feel like it’s an honor to be the caretaker of 48° N 122° W?” I ask Rodger.
He shrugs. “I dunno. It’s a two-edged sword. I might have to put up a sign at the end of the driveway now, so people can leave their phone numbers if they want to visit the spot.”
“What about a plaque?” I joke.
“Yeah, I thought about that . . .” he says quite seriously, stroking his chin.
On the winding forest roads back to the freeway, the stentorian British tones of my GPS device inform me that I’ve missed my turn-off. “You turned the wrong way, dumb-ass,” scolds Daniel. “Just do what I say.” I must have been distracted by the thought of thousands of confluence hunters combing the Earth for perfectly arbitrary geometric points. At least members of the Highpointers Club are climbing to real geographical peaks, albeit minor ones in many cases. The earth’s grid of latitude and longitude, on the other hand, is entirely arbitrary. The fact that we divide the circle into 360 degrees is anancient artifact based on the Babylonians’ (incorrect) estimate of the number of days in a year. Lines of longitude are even more arbitrary, since the Earth doesn’t have any West Pole or East Pole. Our current zero-degree line of longitude, the Prime Meridian through Greenwich, was a convention chosen only after much political wrangling at the 1884 International Meridian Conference, called by mutton-chopped U.S. president Chester A. Arthur. France refused to vote for the London line and continued to use its own meridian, through Paris, for thirty years. If the French had been a little more persuasive or the ancient Babylonians a little less, Alex Jarrett and his fellow confluence hunters would have a totally different grid of intersections to contend with.
But that’s the beauty of the Degree Confluence Project—its essential randomness. The photos on its website are just as homogeneous as the ones on any roadgeek site: the same unremarkable foliage and dry grass and mud seem to show up time and again, whether the magic spot was found in Botswana or Bakersfield. But the pictures remind us that it’s never enough just to be at a place—anyone can do that. The trick is to know where you are. Columbus “discovered” America, in his own small Eurocentric way, but when the continent was named, he was snubbed in favor of Amerigo Vespucci. That wasn’t just because Vespucci marketed the sexy natives better, I learned at the Library of Congress. It’s also because he was the one who knew where he was, knew the context.
Which is why I tracked down Rodger. He seems unflustered byhis newfound claim to fame. “I knew the property was on the forty-eight-north line, but I had no idea about the—confluence, you called it?” But when I ask if I can visit the all-important square foot of land, I find out that it won’t be possible for months. Rodger is a cook on a tugboat currently bound for Hawaii and then Wake Island—one of the Travelers’ Century Club’s most troublesome destinations, if you’ll recall. “I’ll call you when I get back,” he promises.
I expect never to hear from him again, but two months later, Rodger’s as good as his word. “When do you want to come up and see 48/122?” he asks. That very weekend, he and I are out trampling the ferns at the end of his driveway, swinging our respective GPS receivers around like blind men with white canes. Just like geocaching, only without anything tangible waiting to be found.
“Near as I can tell, it’s right here,” says Rodger finally. “Zero zero zero. All zeroes.”
I wonder if I will feel some lightning crackle of Global Significance when I stand on the magic point, but nothing happens. I dutifully take a picture of the fateful ferns. Just as with the roadgeeks, attention must be paid.
“Do you feel like it’s an honor to be the caretaker of 48° N 122° W?” I ask Rodger.
He shrugs. “I dunno. It’s a two-edged sword. I might have to put up a sign at the end of the driveway now, so people can leave their phone numbers if they want to visit the spot.”
“What about a plaque?” I joke.
“Yeah, I thought about that . . .” he says quite seriously, stroking his chin.
On the winding forest roads back to the freeway, the stentorian British tones of my GPS device inform me that I’ve missed my turn-off. “You turned the wrong way, dumb-ass,” scolds Daniel. “Just do what I say.” I must have been distracted by the thought of thousands of confluence hunters combing the Earth for perfectly arbitrary geometric points. At least members of the Highpointers Club are climbing to real geographical peaks, albeit minor ones in many cases. The earth’s grid of latitude and longitude, on the other hand, is entirely arbitrary. The fact that we divide the circle into 360 degrees is anancient artifact based on the Babylonians’ (incorrect) estimate of the number of days in a year. Lines of longitude are even more arbitrary, since the Earth doesn’t have any West Pole or East Pole. Our current zero-degree line of longitude, the Prime Meridian through Greenwich, was a convention chosen only after much political wrangling at the 1884 International Meridian Conference, called by mutton-chopped U.S. president Chester A. Arthur. France refused to vote for the London line and continued to use its own meridian, through Paris, for thirty years. If the French had been a little more persuasive or the ancient Babylonians a little less, Alex Jarrett and his fellow confluence hunters would have a totally different grid of intersections to contend with.
But that’s the beauty of the Degree Confluence Project—its essential randomness. The photos on its website are just as homogeneous as the ones on any roadgeek site: the same unremarkable foliage and dry grass and mud seem to show up time and again, whether the magic spot was found in Botswana or Bakersfield. But the pictures remind us that it’s never enough just to be at a place—anyone can do that. The trick is to know where you are. Columbus “discovered” America, in his own small Eurocentric way, but when the continent was named, he was snubbed in favor of Amerigo Vespucci. That wasn’t just because Vespucci marketed the sexy natives better, I learned at the Library of Congress. It’s also because he was the one who knew where he was, knew the context.
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