CONTOUR MAPS - INTRODUCTION
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"Hey, Lulu! I've been thinking! Look at this map! How come
there are two roads from Louberg to Luluville? Why would anyone bother
to build a curvy, indirect route like Dingle Road when the Bo Ring Way
route is straight and so much shorter?!" |
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"Look at my map and you'll see!" |
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"Wow! Cool map! Dingle Road must have been easier to build! It
must be old! Old but scenic! It goes around all the hills! Bo Ring Way
goes up, over and through the mountains! A miracle of modern, fast
highway building! But a little dull! I really like those 3-D effects on
your map, Lulu!" |
| "The map has its good points! But it doesn't tell you how high
or steep the mountains are! And you can't see what's going on on the
sides of the mountains facing away from us!" |
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"True, true! But whad'ya gonna do?!" |
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"Get a map with topographic contours! A contour map!" |
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| "You mean those brown lines? How'm I gonna understand all that
spaghetti?!" |
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"Take it step by step, Lou, step by step! Take a look at this
picture!" |
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"The heights
above sea
level (that is, the elevations)
of the three peaks are 3047 feet for Mt. Riddle, 3998 feet for Mt. Ginger,
and 2186 feet for Mt. Tipster!" |
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| "An island paradise! Three peaks, rivers flowing down to the
sea! Very exotic!" |
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| "That guy with the paintbrush sure had a lot of energy! What
do you call those lines?" |
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| "Those lines are called contour lines! They're lines
of equal elevation above sea level! All the points on the lowest line
are zero feet above sea level! All the points on the next higher contour
line are 500 feet above sea level! And so on!" |
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"That sounds cool!" |
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"Hold on, Lou! That's not all! Then the guy flew over the
island and looked straight down from way up high, and this is what he
saw!" |
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"All the painted shorelines - and the rivers!
Like a map!" |
Go to Contour Labeling to learn more about this subject: http://ccso.server101.com/iv-p5b_labeling.htm
Our thanks to Professor of Geology, David Leveson at
Brooklyn
College
, CUNy
for his kind permission to use this copyrighted material.
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/geology/leveson/core/linksa/maptop.html
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