I think it highly likely that quite a few Hooting Yard readers will have woken up this morning thinking to themselves, “Gosh! It really is time I bought myself a map of Switzerland! As soon as I have done my ablutions and chomped my breakfast I shall head off to the cartographers’ bazaar to make a judicious purchase!”
It is thus fortunate that I can pass on to you some very sensible advice in the matter, courtesy of that excellent Mr Ruskin.
The Original von Keller’s Zweiter Reisekarte der Schweitz (1844) is, says Ruskin, “the only map of Switzerland which has ever been executed with common sense and intelligence”. (Praeterita, Volume II, Chapter XI, paragraph 215.) Lord knows there are plenty of maps of Switzerland made with foolhardiness and stupidity, and you might have gone and bought one of those. Notch that up as another triumph for Hooting Yard’s map-procurement advisory service.
The illustration below is a detail from von Keller’s earlier 1825 map of Switzerland. It has clearly been executed with somewhat less common sense and intelligence than the 1844 version, but is still far more sensible than the average Swiss map.
This is how sensible maps should be made:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTt0cgOO_ag
But you need a girl to help..
O.S.M.
I’ve been thinking about this:
1. That map detail you are showing me there seems to have been modified to show a trail of blood from Schaffhausen to Zurich, some of it cross-country.
2. I am not accusing you of anything.
3. A commonsense map of Switzerland would have legends like This Road is UPHILL ALL THE WAY and No, You cannot get from Here to There, for there is a BLOODY GREAT MOUNTAIN RANGE IN THE WAY scrawled all over it, perhaps until the map is black. An intelligent map of Switzerland would convey the same information graphically.