John Dower's Comparative Lengths of the Principal Rivers, and the Heights of the Principal Mountains of the World is a remarkable example of what we now celebrate as "data visualization": the world's highest mountains and longest rivers (as known in Europe in 1832), displayed for easy comparison. The nested triangles rising to the perfect isosceles at center represent continents: Asia, America, Europe, Africa and, er, the British Isles. I learned about this diagram from a lovely new book I'm likely to use in next semester's class, Veronica della Dora's Mountain: Nature and Culture (Reaktion/Chicago, 2016), 25. But if stacking up massive mountains is sort of funny, there's something awful about the dangling rivers arrayed above them, like the uncoiled bodies of snakes. Friday, December 09, 2016
Standing reserve
John Dower's Comparative Lengths of the Principal Rivers, and the Heights of the Principal Mountains of the World is a remarkable example of what we now celebrate as "data visualization": the world's highest mountains and longest rivers (as known in Europe in 1832), displayed for easy comparison. The nested triangles rising to the perfect isosceles at center represent continents: Asia, America, Europe, Africa and, er, the British Isles. I learned about this diagram from a lovely new book I'm likely to use in next semester's class, Veronica della Dora's Mountain: Nature and Culture (Reaktion/Chicago, 2016), 25. But if stacking up massive mountains is sort of funny, there's something awful about the dangling rivers arrayed above them, like the uncoiled bodies of snakes. 