Jewel of the Universe

Here is a remarkable piece of art that I missed back in 2012 and have not been able to find any recent information about. English-Chinese artist Chris Chamberlain created this world map from stained glass and jewels.

-image via Acte Gratuit

-via My Modern Met

He describes his 2+ year process in a video. He hand cut over a quarter of a million pieces of glass and 1,238 gemstones. He used zircons for many cities. There is one diamond representing Freetown, Sierra Leone. Rubies were used to indicate religious centers such as Jerusalem and Mecca. He also used emeralds and sapphires. Here is one detailed area of the map.

Since this is glass it is meant to be illuminated from behind. This image, via ArtRabbit gives some idea of what that looks like.

He also illuminated the map in his video but it is a little hard to appreciate it from a YouTube screen shot.

He mentioned that the work is for sale and I imagine it must have sold because there is no further information about the artist of the work and the web site set up for the artwork no longer exists. For a few more pictures and details (includes the one below) see this page on My Modern Met. 

Our Drying Planet

A recent study in the journal Science and illustrated by ProPublica details how the Earth’s land is drying. Water is being diverted to the oceans by melting glaciers, agricultural runoff and by pumping aquifers. The story incorporates a spinning globe as you scroll down, highlighting problem areas

Earth’s supply of fresh water is quickly disappearing leading to a “a critical, emerging threat to humanity.” Aquifers are being pumped out causing groundwater depletion. This has become one of the largest contributors to sea level rise and is causing the land to sink as shown dramatically by this illustration.

Some of the world’s most important food producing areas such as the Nile and Mekong River deltas are threatened. This subsidence is also happening in many major cities, compounding the flooding problems that are increasing due to rising sea levels. 

The ProPublica story includes maps showing global water loss as well as these problem areas of North and South America.

The scarcity of water is being used as a weapon in many conflict zones around the world the world. Without a global framework or governmental regulations these problems will continue to grow. The article mentions some policies that have worked, at least temporarily and suggests that a policy that looks at water as a national security concern, may be able to counterbalance special interests and forces of habit. Scroll through the ProPublica site for more details and illustrations.

Traffic Counts, 1925

I found this 1925 traffic count map on the Library of Congress website while looking for maps by Howard Fogel, last week’s mystery cartographer.

This blueprint style map uses line thickness. I like how they hollowed out the big cities, otherwise the thick lines would take over the entire area. It also lists traffic counts, which at the time could range from 8,000 daily vehicles traveling north from Chicago, 

to a mere 50 or so south of Buffalo in western South Dakota and 65 between Buffalo and Bison (what we call buffalo are really bison, not true buffalo if you like being picky).

There were 6,000 cars heading west from Milwaukee. Today’s Wisconsin DOT Traffic Counts Map shows 166,000 daily cars.

They don't make maps like that anymore. The current map seems to be lacking a bit of the human touch.