Word: raiszed
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...this more scholarly approach which typifies the map-making of Erwin Raisz, a former lecturer in Cartography at the University and one of the world's foremost experts in so-called landform maps. Geology, geography, and history departments at universities throughout the country order maps from him, as do various government agencies in Washington...
...resident of Cambridge, Raisz has traveled in every state in the United States, every province in Canada, every country in Europe, and in Turkey, Arabia, Mexico, Cuba, Alaska, and the Canadian Arctic. For his actual map-making, he uses aerial photographs, large collections of which are available both in this country and abroad. He particularly likes those taken with a trimetrogon camera--really three cameras in one. They are mounted so that one camera takes a picture straight downward, while the two others take pictures obliquely left and right from horizon to horizon with a small overlap...
When such pictures are being taken, the plane will usually fly at a constant height--about 20,000 feet--and at a constant speed, making parallel flights over a given area about 30 to 50 miles apart. With the additional aid of various types of land surveys, Raisz then makes his maps, transferring the material from larger scale maps to smaller ones. One map can--and has--taken him many months to complete...
...Raisz is often called upon to undertake special projects. The familiar map of Harvard, for instance, is his work. Last year he did a relief globe of the Earth, six feet in diameter, which he carved from plaster of Paris. It is now being commercially manufactured from rubber. His own particular interest is the "land-type" map, a colored version of the landform. The colors, however, do not represent different heights--they indicate the vegetation and cultivation of the land. This comes closest, he says, to a "true portrait of the face of Mother Earth...
Born in Hungary, Raisz came to this country in 1922. He got his Ph.D. in Geology at Columbia. Then, to support himself, he started making maps for the Geology Department there. Eventually, he started teaching cartography, too. At that time, only Chicago University and West Point, aside from Columbia, offered such a course...