Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 4
BENCHMARKS
n
.:
brass disks set in concrete to indicate elevation,
used as a reference for topographical surveying
This information
is what we need, you know. This shows history
and how people fit the places they occupy. It's about what gets erased
and what comes to replace it. These maps reveal the foundations
behind the ephemera.
—BARRY LOPEZ
T
o enter the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress, you need to mess
with Texas: set in the tile floor of the entryway is a circular detail from a geologic map of
the Lone Star State. That's not an accident, according to map division chief John Hébert,
a proud Louisiana native. “If anyone wants to, I encourage them to”—here his mild Cajun
accent breaks off, and he makes a show of stamping his feet on the map, using the Texas
Hill Country to dust off his shoes. Apart from the Texas-bashing twinkle in his eye, Hébert
isaserious-lookingsixtysomethingmanwithroundbifocalsandashockofwavywhitehair
abovehisoft-knitted brow.Hiseyebrows,though,stillhavealittle peppermixedinwiththe
salt. We cross the patrons' reading room and pass through a secure set of doors at the other
end. “You're in my world now,” he says.
Hébert'sworld,located inthebasement ofthelibrary'sJames Madison Building, isarow
of metal map cases so long it momentarily takes my breath away. I always feel a certain
sense of reverence in libraries, even small city ones that smell like homeless Internet users.
Being so close to so much laboriously gathered information gives me a strange satisfaction
with the scope of human ingenuity, the way other people might feel visiting Hoover Dam
or the Great Wall of China. But this library is different from any I've ever seen, a seem-
ingly endless expanse straight out of a Borges story. I can follow the fluorescent-lit lines of
shelves almost to a single vanishing point in each direction. There are 8,500 of these cases,
withfivedrawerspercase,twoentirefootballfieldsjustformaps.Andthey'reheavy,which
is why we're two stories underground. “We have to be on this floor,” explains Hébert, “be-
cause if we were on the sixth floor, we'd be down here pretty soon anyway.” It's the largest
map collection ever assembled in human history.
Maps have been Hébert's passkey to a larger world ever since he was a boy growing up
in the bayou country. He and his older brother stretched a ham radio antenna out the bed-
roomwindowintheirHouma,Louisiana,homeandattachedittoatreeinthevacantlotnext
