Railroad Maps of the United States

出版者:Bernan Assoc

作者:Library of Congress Geography and Map Division (COR)/ Modelski, Andrew M.

页数:112

价格:5.5

装帧:Pap

isbn号码:9780844401553

AMERICAN RAILROAD MAPPING had its inception early in the 19th century when people began moving inland over the inadequately chartedcontinental landscape. The expanding frontier, the rich agricultural production of the land, andexploitation of natural resources demanded im-proved methods of transport. The transportationrevolution was initiated with construction ofprivately owned toll or turnpike roads, gatheredmomentum with the introduction of steamshipsand canal building, and reached maturity in the1830's with the introduction of steampoweredrailroadsJ Soon after James Watt developed the steamengine, the invention was adapted by John Fitchin 1787 to propel a ship on the Delaware and inthe same year by James Rumsey on the PotomacRiver. Fitch, an American inventor and surveyor,had two years earlier published his "Map of theNorthwest" to finance the building of a commer-cial steamboat. With Robert Fulton's steamboat,the Clermont, and a boat built by John Stevens, theuse of steam power for vessels became firmlyestablished. Railroads and the use of steam prop-ulsion developed separately, however, and it wasnot until the two systems merged that railroadsbegan to flourish. The use of rails for heavily loaded, wheeledvehicles to reduce friction was introduced inEngland as earIy as the 17th century. The firstAmerican "tramroad" or "gravity road" waserected in 1764 for military purposes at theNiagara portage in Lewiston, N. Y., under thedirection of Capt. John Montressor, a Britishengineer, known to students of historical carto-graphy also as a mapmaker. A map of the LeiperIntroductiozRailroad in Pennsylvania, dated October 1, 180!and signed by the surveyor John Tomson, mabe the first railroad survey in America. TI:original has, seemingly, not survived. A r~production, entitled "Draft Exhibiting... tl:.Railway Contemplated by John Leiper Esq. FrolHis Stone Sawmill and Quarries... to His Lancing on Ridley Creek," however, illustrates Robe~P. Robins' A Short ACcount of the First Permane~Tramway in America (Philadelphia, 1886).2 Thfirst of the commercial"tramroads" was surveye and constructed in 1826 at Quincy, Mass., b Gridley Bryant, with the machinery for it develope, by Solomon Willard. It was to utilize horsepoweto haul granite, needed for building the BunkeHill Monument,s from the quarries at Quincyfour miles to the wharf on the Neponset RiverThe following year the Mauch Chunk "gravit,road," us