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15 October 2024 22 April 2025

Literary Hidden Hydrology

Jason Kingcultural, general, history, landscape, language, literature, london, places, riversLeave a Comment

There is a rich literary history around hidden hydrology, which I was reminded of by the recent publication of the novel “There Are Rivers in the Sky” by Elif Shafak. The book has gained attention for its interwoven stories around water, and, notably, specific references to ‘lost rivers’.

The novel includes three storylines from different eras, with the characters of Arthur from 1840s London, Narin from 2014 in Turkey, and Zaleekah in 2018 in London, each occupying a specific water-based narrative. As summarized in the Penguin Random House blurb:

“… There Are Rivers in the Sky entwines these outsiders with a single drop of water, a drop which remanifests across the centuries. Both a source of life and harbinger of death, rivers—the Tigris and the Thames—transcend history, transcend fate: “Water remembers. It is humans who forget.”

I’ll try to avoid any spoilers, while I discuss how this relates to hidden hydrology. It’s an engaging tale, touching on the discovery of the Epic of Gilgamesh, a reference to A.H. Layard’s ‘Nineveh and Its Remains’, mudlarking and toshers, some cameos like John Snow and his ‘Ghost Map’ investigations of water-borne cholera near the Broad Street pump, some interesting ideas of water dowsing, and my new favorite cuneiform symbol for water.

Symbol for Water via Dr. Moudhy Al-Rashid

AQUATIC MEMORY

The wildest idea is ‘aquatic memory’, which provides some narrative drive, alluded to in the description above, that a single drop of water connects multiple people through time. The ideas in the book were formulated by Zaleekah’s fictional mentor, who was ultimately disgraced by his pursuit of what others considered unreliable pseudo-science, as noted (187):

“…under certain circumstances, water — the universal solvent — retained evidence, or ‘memory,’ of the solute particles that had dissolved in it, no matter how many times it was diluted or purified. Even if years passed, or centuries, and not a single original molecule remained, each droplet of water maintained a unique structure, distinguishable from the next, marked forever by what it once contained. Water, in other words, remembered.”

The idea seemingly makes for compelling storytelling, however, it seemed a bit underdeveloped in the novel itself in my opinion. It does provide a loose framework for the same water molecule’s memories (loosely based on the real-life ideas of Jacques Benveniste), but fails to explain what this idea means beyond the 3 main characters and their narratives. There’s a ‘summary’ table of the water path through the story at the end, but, to me, it didn’t really mean much and the result is a lot of missed potential.

LOST RIVERS

The lost river content was also somewhat underdeveloped, reading as minimal and tangential anecdotes that seem forced into the story versus being fundamental to any of the plotlines. Zaleekah, the character supposedly studying this phenomenon honestly didn’t do a lot, although she had the most potential to expand the ideas of how lost rivers connect with aquatic memory and even the larger storyline. Her role in the story becomes muddled with a failed marriage, and dysfunctional family dynamics that connect to the greater story in the end but don’t contribute much more.

She makes the bold claim early on, “I’m part of a project — we’re collaborating with scientists worldwide to help restore lost rivers.” (151) but never really discusses what they do in a meaningful way, or how it relates to the story. It leads to a forced conversation touching on the River Bièvre in Paris and giving a cursory ‘these are everywhere’ sort of list, and how we buried them.

She later discusses London’s lost rivers, which reads like a guidebook entry (or a marginally more interesting recounting of Barton’s Lost Rivers of London), rather than something enlivening the story. For instance, this passage (183-184):

“Then there is the River Effra in South London, concealed and culverted, nowadays a conduit for drainage and waste matter, silently coursing under not only houses and offices but also cemeteries, whence it sometimes unearths and carries off buried coffins. There is also the Tyburn, a source of delicious fresh salmon in the distant past, though barely remembered these days, as it flows unseen and unheard underneath celebrated urban landmarks. The Walbrook, once a sapphire-blue river running through the Roman fort of Londonium into the Thames, shimmering like the wing of a dragonfly, provided residents with clean water; now it only feeds into a malodorous sewer.”

Later on, she discovers a note on her desk in her office when searching for something, with the following jotted down: (186)

“HOW TO BURY A RIVER

Build concrete troughs along both sides of the riverbed.

Add a roof to the troughs.

Encase the river completely on three sides, turning it into one long, winding coffin.

Cover the roof with earth, making sure no trace is visible.

Build your city over it.

Forget that it was there.”

It’s all sort of random and snippets like this are a throw-away with little context and less relationship to the overall narrative. There’s nothing to follow up on why we should care and how lost rivers tie into the bigger story. I will admit that having a specific agenda about how lost rivers and hidden hydrology fit into fictional narrative structures is a little pedantic. So my defense is that, on the whole, I liked the story, while I was also disappointed in how these subjects of water and lost rivers were incorporated.

My disappointment comes from a desire to see more opportunities in embedding the ideas of lost rivers into creative writing, to inform and engage a larger audience about the concepts. I am always excited and a little worried when I hear about examples that promise such. Much of the writing around lost rivers only appeals to a very interested subset of people, so connecting these ideas to mainstream culture, popular media, and entertainment could help spread the word to folks who would not be interested otherwise.

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THE EXPANDED LITERARY FIELD

On that note, the first time I connected with the idea of hidden hydrology in literature was a few years back when I wrote an essay related to a novel by Ben Winters from 2016 “Underground Airlines.” The story features Pogue’s Run, a hidden urban stream in Indianapolis, which plays a vital role in the narrative of the novel. Since then, I’ve been collecting previous explorations of literature around hidden hydrology, where subsurface waterways play a significant role in the plot and action of the story.

From a purely hidden hydrology, there’s a short list of titles, some of which I’ve read and others I’ve found or have been clued into by research or other readers. This resulted in a short loose working bibliography.

There are Rivers in the Sky (Shafak), 2024
Rivers of London (Aaronovitch), 2016-2024
Underground Airlines (Winters), 2016
The City of Ember (DuPrau), 2013
Dodger (Pratchett), 2012
Montmorency (Updale), 2003
Neverwhere (Gaiman), 1996
The Doom of the Great City (Delisle Hay), 1880
Journey to the Center of the Earth (Verne), 1864
Les Miserables (Hugo), 1862

This investigation intersects with much broader and fascinating areas of inquiry like the Underworld, and a literary subgenre known as Subterranean Fiction. Beware of rabbit holes, as these yield wild threads like Hollow Earth theory (which makes for great fiction). Works span centuries and many genres like sci-fi and fantasy, delving into the literal underworld below the surface. However they do not always specifically touch on waterways, so not all are relevant.

HELP EXPAND THE LIST

The list above is modest, so I hope to expand this initial catalog and explore the full spectrum of possible literary hidden hydrology references. Let me know if you have other examples or favorites you’ve encountered where the concept and context of buried creeks, sewers, and lost rivers play a part in novels, stories, or other fictional works. I would love to expand my overall library of options, hear your thoughts, and explore more deeply.

Note: This post was originally posted on Substack on 10/15/24 and added to the Hidden Hydrology website on 04/22/25.

11 June 2024 22 April 2025

Urban Surfing

Jason Kingcase study, design, general, places, projects, riversLeave a Comment

There are multiple ways of activating urban waterways, including those focusing on ecological, economic, and social aspects. Urban surfing is a unique way to use waterways in the city for recreation and people-watching, expanding on the use of swimming and boating by modifying the flows of existing rivers or creating artificial waves in waterways. Recently, a few examples of these projects came across my screens, and I was blown away.

Eisbachwelle | Munich, Germany

The most well-known of these urban surf spots is the Eisbachwelle, a standing wave created in the Eisbach River in Munich. According to the article “Eisbach: the mother of all river waves.” (Surfer Today), the site has been surfed since the 1970s, and over time the flow has been modified using planks and ropes to make the swell more consistent. The site hosts surfing competitions and as seen below, all season surfing in the urban core.

A video with more information about the Eisbach is featured in the Vans ‘Weird Waves” series.

Rif010 Urban Surf | Rotterdam, Netherlands

A more recent example that is opening soon, featured in the article “How Rotterdam built a wave pool for surfing inside a centuries-old canal.” (Fast Company, 06.04.24) outlines the plans for the Rif010, billed on the site as the “…world firsts surf pool in the middle of a city.”

Render of Rif010 urban surf spot (Rotterdam Style)

The article delves more into the process of how the park was developed, and what was done to integrate the recirculating system into an existing canal. The project aims to be a destination, with different experiences for beginners to learn, versus areas for seasoned surfers. The club also includes a restaurant and bar, rentals, and several other amenities beyond the surf.

The proposed system, set to open soon after a 12-year process to get it built, produces waves every seven seconds through a complicated mechanical system of pumps, designed by consultants at SurfLoch. According to the article, Rif010:

“…uses pneumatic technology to mirror the way waves form in the ocean. At RIF010, this technology is powered by eight engines that are powered by wind energy sourced from the North Sea. The engines do what the wind does in real life, namely “push and pull” the water to create a succession of waves known as a swell.”

In the United States, a little bit of searching on on the topic yields the story of Big Surf in the 1960s. As noted in the article, “Big Surf: the story of America’s first modern wave pool.” (Surfer Today) discusses the design and development of Big Surf, a totally artificial wave park in Tempe Arizona, simulating real wave action miles from the ocean.

Our focus here is less on the water park model and more on activating urban rivers and waterways. The article “River Surfing: The 7 Best Destinations in the USA.” (American Surf Magazine, 04.03.24) showcases several other examples worth a look, a few of which are more urban and river-based versions.

River Run Park | Sheridan, Colorado

Located near Denver, along the South Platte River, River Run Park was constructed with three surfing waves, called Chichlets (seen below), Benihanas, and Nikki Sixx, each providing more difficulty.

A plan shows the constriction of the river which were originally drop structures in a channelized stream. As noted in the ASLA Colorado award submittal from DHM Design: “The project reconstructed two large, existing drop structures and replaced them with six lower drop structures that include recreational features from wave shapers for surfing and kayaks to water shoots for kids play.”

Bend Whitewater Park | Bend, Oregon

Closer to (my) home, the Bend Whitewater Park provides multiple experiences through modification of the hydrology of the Deschutes River. There are 3 distinct channels, one focused on habitat, another for slow floating, and a third, a whitewater channel with multiple waves for surfing, kayaking, and paddleboarding.

The three channels of the Bend Whitewater Park (Jeffrey Conklin/Bend Magazine)

This video from The Register-Guard shows the part in action.

The list above is not exhaustive (please send me others you know about), but gives a snapshot of some European and US places that provide unique opportunities to carve some waves without a trip to the beach. While not focused on the ecological benefits these provide special locations for use of urban waterways for surfers and spectators.

For some bonus reading, the article “A brief history of artificial wave pools.” (Surfer Today) outlines the historical evolution of introducing waves into water bodies through artificial means, dating back to the mid-19th century! It’s probably worth a follow-up on this interesting tangent to the potential of waterway transformation.

Note: This post was originally posted on Substack on 06/11/24 and added to the Hidden Hydrology website on 04/23/25.

20 May 2019 20 May 2019

The Final Frontier: Cosmic Waters

Jason Kingcreeks, general, lakes, maps, places, precipitation, rivers, streamsLeave a Comment

I’ve been wanting to write this one for a bit, as I often stumble upon interesting articles that veer widely away from the core subject matter but still have a resonance with the hidden hydrology project (or at least my expansive view of it). While cosmic in nature, are there clues to be gleaned from other worlds and applied to our planet that can inform our relationship with water? Even if not, if you’re interested in water, it’s pretty fun to explore the most distant and hidden hydrological processes, even in brief, from the Moon, Mars, and some of the interstellar stories around our solar system.

CLOSE TO HOME: MOON

Our Moon is unique is having been studied extensively, and due to proximity, having had humans visit and walk on the surface. There has been speculation on water on the Moon, and when viewed from afar, a long history of people seeing ‘rivers’ on the moon. These may be features like this depression, seen here via the Earth Science Picture of the Day, showing Rima Hadley, “…an ancient rille… [which] may be the remnant of a collapsed lava tube. Lava from an erupting fissure may assume drainage patterns similar to overland water flow.”

More recent work is augmenting these hydrological stories with data about the actual presence of water. Some of this, via Express: “NASA’S scientists have found proof to suggest surface waters on the Moon have been hidden in plain sight for decades, according to a shocking lunar meteor impact study.” The water vapor released by the impacts explains a bit of the mystery of water on the Moon, which accumulates at the polar caps, which had been posited to have come from other sources like solar winds. The water vapor lasted a short time, which is indicative of the relatively small amounts of lunar water, around 200-500 parts per million. Or, by another measure, per the article: “It is so dry that one would need to process more than a metric ton of regolith in order to collect 16 ounces of water.“

RED PLANET/BLUE PLANET: MARS

Similarly, the presence of subsurface water is also changing our perceptions of Mars. Most recently, a parade of articles discussed evidence of, water on the red planet, with some speculating on this a proof of alien life, others speculating about gushing rivers that were wider than the Mississippi. The consistent theme as mentioned in the Independent, is the presence of “…a vast and active system of water running underneath the surface of Mars.” While it is broadly a reference to our further our understanding of Mars as a planet, scientists say it could also yield some clues for Earth hydrology, as it is speculated that the water was coming from “a deep pressurized source from where water is pushed up.” This is a similar to desert systems here on our planet.

From the image above: “The bright top line represents the icy surface of Mars in this region. The south polar layered deposits – layers of ice and dust – are seen to a depth of about 1.5 km. Below is a base layer that in some areas is brighter than the surface reflections, highlighted in blue, while in other places is rather diffuse. The details of the reflected signals from the base layer yield properties that correspond to liquid water. “

Analysis of the specifics show the water ‘carving’ the landscape, and creating valleys, with additional topographic analysis revealing complex watershed on the surfaces.

” This colour-coded topographic view shows the relative heights of the terrain in and around the network of dried-up valleys on Mars. Lower parts of the surface are shown in blues and purples, while higher altitudes show up in whites, yellows, and reds, as indicated on the scale to the top right. ” via Independent

A similar story from Space.com explains the theories that “Mars Had Big Rivers for Billions of Years“, which discusses the persistence of flows after loss of atmosphere, up until a billion years ago. Scientists conducted: “a global survey of Mars’ ancient waterways, characterizing more than 200 such systems using imagery and other data captured from orbit. They derived age estimates for these rivers by counting craters in the surrounding terrain. The team’s work suggests that Martian rivers flowed intermittently but intensely over much of the planet’s 4.5-billion-year history, driven by precipitation-fed runoff. The rivers’ impressive width — in many cases, more than twice that of comparable Earth catchments — is a testament to that intensity. It’s unclear how much water Martian rivers carried, because their depth is hard to estimate. Determining depth generally requires up-close analysis of riverbed rocks and pebbles, Kite said, and such work has only been done in a few locations on Mars, such as Gale Crater, which NASA’s Curiosity rover has been exploring since 2012.”

There are also lakes, which are indicated by reflectivity, adjacent to larger areas of frozen ice near the poles of Mars. The Guardian, from a 2018 article “Mars: huge underground lake raises prospects of life on planet, astronomers say.” which makes the connection not to Martians in the sci-fi sense, but rather to the conditions for simple life forms:

“It is the first time that researchers have identified a stable body of liquid water on the red planet. The finding raises the likelihood that any microbial life that arose on Mars may continue to eke out a rather bleak existence deep beneath the surface. “

A deeper dive worth reading is also this article from published in the Planetary Society in 2017, “Unraveling a Martian enigma: The hidden rivers of Arabia Terra” which provide more investigation of remnant traces of what may be “Mars’ largest flood plain”.

Topographic map of mars – via Planetary.org

Speculation on the climate of Mars as potentially hotter and wetter, which may . The author posits that frozen ice sheets in the northern segments regularly thawed from heating events, and this liquid water would flow and create river systems. Strangely enough, these former rivers express themselves in inverted channels, which are described below:

“A river preserved as a ridge seems like a bit of a paradox, but inverted channels are fairly common on Mars. They occur when the river sediment within the channel becomes resistant to erosion (this can happen chemically, due to interaction with water, or by the deposition of large pebbles and boulders within the channel). Once the channel ceases to flow, the material adjacent to the channel—perhaps flood plain deposits—gets eroded at a faster rate than the channel, leaving the channel upstanding in the landscape. Inverted channels are also found in desert environments on the Earth, such as in Oman or Utah, where low rates of erosion can aid with their preservation. “

Inverted channel on Mars (Aram Dorsum) – via Planetary.org

Inverted channel on Earth (Green River, Utah) – via Planetary.org

EUROPA SPACE GEYSERS: JUPITER

The beauty of these flows are represented similarly on Europa, a moon of Jupiter that has had an icy surface that shows a varying mosaic on its surface. From CNET: “New analysis of measurements taken by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft over 20 years ago provides more evidence that water from an ocean beneath Europa’s icy shell is shooting out into space via at least one large geyser.” The story goes on to add:

“Europa’s hidden waters have become a prime target in the search for extraterrestrial life…”

The layering of imagery from Galileo from 1997, combined with more detailed analysis. Below, the striations and flows are highlighted, and in the second shown with “The blue-white terrains indicate relatively pure water ice, whereas the reddish areas contain water ice mixed with hydrated salts, potentially magnesium sulfate or sulfuric acid.”

The space geysers are also reinforced with more recent views from the Hubble Telescope, which has necessitated a future mission to gather more info. A recent fly-by by Cassini of Saturn, which has moons of similar type with a large under-ice ocean, has also led to even alien life. This combination of heated water under ice, in a interstellar ocean of Europa, and a similar Saturn moon, Enceladus, could, as posited here, also be the building blocks for life on other planets.

RAIN ON TITAN: SATURN

Beyond Mars and the Moon, more distant planets also have also liquid stories. A 2017 article in Universe Today, pointed out that Titan, the largest moon of Saturn “…is the only other world in our Solar System that has stable liquid on its surface.” This liquid surface is not water, but made up of methane and ethane, along with nitrogen, and the Cassini mission provided interesting info on the constantly fluctuating surface, including a disappearing and reappearing island, along with speculation of wave action. It’s also pretty interesting to note that there is precipitation as well:

On Titan, it rains. But the rain is composed of extremely cold methane. As that methane falls to the surface, it absorbs significant amounts of nitrogen from the atmosphere. The rain hits Titan’s surface and collects in the lakes on the moon’s polar regions.

This is most evident in polar lakes, referred to as ‘mare‘, from the latin for sea, which, like the moon, reference their being seen as water bodies similar to earth.

Ligeia Mare, a large polar water body on Titan – image via Universe Today

To take this idea to the logical extreme, a map of the Ligeia Mare with the adjacent drainage shows that hydrology (In this case not hidden, just very distance), whether it be Earth-based on a distant moon of Saturn, and consisting of water or a brew of methane, still follows those similar characteristics of gravity, topography, and flow.

A Map of Ligeia Mare by an amateur cartographer (Peter Minton) – via Wikipedia

HEADER: Image of Mars taken by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express satellite show the marks that an ancient network of rivers have left on the planet’s surface – via Independent

02 May 2019 02 May 2019

Origin Point

Jason Kingart, city, explorations, general, history, landscape, maps, oregon, photography, places, portlandLeave a Comment

We take for granted much of the modern system of mapping and cartography. In the United States, this system is very much derived from our Jeffersonian grid, established in the late 1700s, and expanded along with US western expansion, this (mostly) unwavering net draped over the country as part of the Public Land Survey. I’ve written previously about the General Land Office (GLO) Cadastral Survey, in more general terms, but in that post, I mentioned a unique feature in Portland — the location of one of the few starting points — the 0,0 point which started the mapping for the entire Pacific Northwest on June 4, 1851.

In the most lovely case of serendipitous map-nerdiness, this point has been protected and celebrated, and is thus both visible and accessible by visiting Willamette Stone State Heritage Site in Northwest Portland. A quick drive from downtown Portland, for anyone remotely interested in maps and Portland history it’s a simple trip up Burnside and winding along the back side of Forest Park.

I’ve been staring at the GLO maps for years, and knew it existed but had yet to visit this spot, so the hint of a nice Spring day last weekend was a pretty good opportunity for a short walk and to check this off my list. A small pull-out off of SW Skyline Drive opens up to trailhead, with a informational board offering a brief introduction that outlines the purpose of the park, and some background on the survey, including a sketch by Roger Cooke showing an illustration of the surveyors at work.

From a short blurb on the sign:

“This short trail leads to the Willamette Stone, the surveyor’s monument that is the point of origin for all public land surveys in Oregon and Washington.”

The monument itself is simple. A short walk through forest, a few steps down and a square paved zone, measuring 20×29 feet, surrounded by benches and immersed in a remnant of northwest forest. From the Oregon Encyclopedia: “The surveyors selected a high point on a ridge along the Tualatin Mountains (known today as Portland’s West Hills) for the intersection of the meridian and base line and the location of the survey initial point established on June 4, 1851. Known later as the Willamette Stone, the first marker placed at the survey point was a cedar post. It was replaced in 1888 with an obelisk marker, but the stone marker and bronze plaques were vandalized in 1951, 1967, and 1987. A stainless-steel marker, set into the original obelisk, was rededicated in 1988. The Willamette Stone site is now enclosed in Willamette Stone State Park near Northwest Skyline Boulevard. “

A plaque provides more information, and the marker (a stainless steel version that was installed after other had been vandalized), with the words ‘Initial Point’ of the Willamette Meridian with the T1N/T1S marking townships above and below, and R1W/R1E marking their east/west counterparts. It was a sunny day but early afternoon was casting deep shadows on the spot, giving it an austere, and somewhat ominous feel. It felt, to me somewhat sacred.

The Willamette Stone Park monument captures some of element of the survey in subtle ways. Embedded metal strips highlight markings on the ground surface, representing the meridian and baseline, a typical township broken into it’s requisite allotment of 36 equally spaced, 640 acre sections, ready for development.

It’s interesting for something so innocuous to hold such power, a simple disc of metal that references something much larger, and more meaningful. The hours I’ve spent staring at the maps derived from this point and the rich history that unfolds. It includes both a snapshot of what existed in the mid-1800s, but by extrapolating back as well to Native settlement and use, shows also a network of pathways worn to common points – a boat launch, a ferry, a significant landmark. These hints of pre-colonial use were shaped for many years, and some have persisted in our urban development – a path turning from a trail now a road with some odd, informal alignment. Ecological mosaics now transformed, consisting of coniferous forests and deciduous lowlands, with marshy margins near meandering rivers whose shorelines continue to weave their way through the pull of northward flowing water. And, all of those now disappeared waterways – the buried creeks, the long forgotten lakes, the now filled wetlands.

Township 1 South, Range 1 E (the Willamette Stone would be the upper left hand corner of this map)

Sitting on one of the benches, I close my eyes and transport myself back to this spot in 1852. I remark on the integrity of some of the remaining verdant ecosystem in this unassuming spot. The verticality of Douglas Fir spires towering skyward, mixed with moss-draped Bigleaf Maple and understory Vine Maple pushing their bright green spring leaves. On the ground, dense clumps of Salal weave around in abundance, punctuated with the complementary textures of Sword Fern and Oregon Grape, lighter margins of Snowberry and Currant. And, to mark the season with a punctuation mark, the fleeting display of Trillium.

Then, slowly, as I peer around, at the edges, I spy a hint of invasive English Ivy and English Holly (both of which were absent from this ecosystem of 170 years ago), beginning to creep out to the margin of my vision. A witness to our human impacts. Panning right, the faint etchings of guy-wires intrude into the viewshed amidst the trees. I’d been so focused on the ground, and the stone, head down focusing on the monument, I’d been unaware of this neighbor. I slowly follow their paths in an about-face, craning my neck straight up to the apex of the radio tower close-by. Not looming, but its red and white paint, and geometry in sharp contrast to the lush greenery.

Thus the scene, as the origin point, took on a double meaning. Although lush and natural on the surface and very much of the place in the Oregon landscape, this survey point was also the origin of our rapidly changing environment. This is evident in the burgeoning city that exists today, and the irreparable impacts on ecology and hydrology that make it barely legible from where it all started. The origin point of our discovery, what we have now experientially only in maps as a record, also being the origin point of our changing landscape and humanity.

The bench I sat on had double meaning also. Surrounding the monument, these contained the names of significant surveyors relevant to this westward documentation. William Ives was responsible for running the Meridian northward towards the Puget Sound, and Eastward along the Baseline as well, according to the history of the Oregon Land Survey John B Preston is also acknowledged, as the first Surveyor General of the Oregon Territory and Western US, his name is pervasive, affixed to many of the GLO maps. And finally, one dedicated to C. Albert White, who was at BLM surveyor with the General Land Office who started in the 1940s, and is know as an expert in cadastral surveying history, which is seem in his 1983 publication, ‘The History of the Rectangular Survey” which is the definitive tome on the Public Land Survey, and fitting for him to be celebrated here as well.

A map excerpt shows these ubiquitous gridlines – the work of Ives and Preston notably on, “A Diagram of a Portion of Oregon Territory,” from 1852. This map highlights this point where the Baseline runs east and west from ocean to the state borders, and the Willamette Meridian runs north-south from the southern border of Oregon up to the US/Canada border. The origin made manifest.

It’s amazing how this GLO survey left an amazing resource for hydrology of cities that were relatively undisturbed, as these surveys were done in a relatively youthful United States, and in the west the mapping in the 1850s was done concurrent with the establishment of many settlements. The resulting maps show small, nascent grids, which predate much of the late 19th and early 20th creative destruction that forever changed the landscape and led to hidden hydrology. It’s good to know your origin story. And in this case, the origin is close at hand.

HEADER: Willamette Meridian — this and all images in post, unless otherwise noted, also by Jason King

06 November 2018 05 January 2023

Tanner Creek Farms Revisited

Jason Kingcity, creeks, cultural, general, history, maps, oregon, places, portland, streams, wetlandsLeave a Comment

As a followup to this post from about a year ago, Farming Tanner Creek, which delved into the history of Chinese farmers in Portland, this post picks that thread up by looking a bit closer at Marie-Rose Wong’s 2004 “Sweet Cakes, Long Journey: The Chinatowns of Portland” The book is a comprehensive look at the history of immigration and settlement and contributions to the development of Oregon and early Portland, integration into the city and its architecture, and frank accounts of local institutional racism and displacement, most notably the impacts of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.

As the title suggests, there were many incarnations of Chinatowns over the years in Portland focused around two zones. The first is the urban development zone of habitation that shifted shape running along the Willamette River to areas centered on Burnside and running to the north and south. These emerged first as a cohesive enclave, and later into a dispersed ‘non-clave’ that persists somewhat today in the small district of Old Town/Chinatown. The second is a zone of Chinese Vegetable Gardens further upland south of Burnside and west of 14th and provided more informal housing and opportunities for vegetable gardens. My focus here is on the latter, the farming zones inland along the banks of Tanner Creek, which Wong discusses and outlines their evolution over time, and how the fates of Chinese farmers and the creek were linked.

The three vicinities of Chinatown – From Wong, p.206

Much of the backstory here is found in the previous post, which focuses on a 2016 article by Putsata Reang in Oregon Humanities, entitled ‘The Farmers of Tanner Creek’ along with some additional information from Tracy Prince’s book “Portland’s Goose Hollow”. In this case, I was pretty fascinated by the dual narratives of the erasure of the Chinese Vegetable Gardens in tandem with the erasure of Tanner Creek, which is illustrated in the series of maps in Wong’s book, spanning 1879 to 1908.

Via “The Farmers of Tanner Creek” – Oregon Humanities “Tanner Creek runs between Chinese gardens and shanties, circa 1892. Providence Park, the Portland Timbers soccer stadium, now stands where these gardens once did. “

I took the liberty of adding a few items of color to these maps, focusing on the routing of Tanner Creek and the extents of the Portland Chinatown Vegetable Garden Community. As mentioned by Wong the roads “…were needed to serve an expanding population, but the flood-prone Tanner Creek and the gulch that meandered through this area were dominant nature features that controlled much of the building potential of the region.” (211) Thus improvements were required to tame this and create conditions better for development and expansion. Wong continues:

“In 1873, the old wooden bridge that spanned the creek connecting B Street to a small number of residences collapses in the rise water fed by winter rains, necessitating replacement and improvement. In July of that same year, the City of Portland contracted Chinese workers to construct a 115-foot cylindrical brick culvert sixty feet below the level of B Street. The culvert was to run along the bed of the creek, with some infill of the gulch to permit construction of a new bridge. At six feet in diameter, the culvert was large enough for a man to walk through and was intended to provide drainage for at least a hundred years. This improvement made it possible to control, if not totally prevent, flooding of the creek and associated erosion along the creek bed and the embankment up to street level.” (211)

The control of flooding by installation of the pipe of Tanner Creek allowed for the Chinese to occupy the site for gardening, as it no longer flooded. The first map from 1879 (p.210) shows a linear band of gardens along Tanner Creek parallel to B Street (current Burnside Street) which future road rights-of-way extending to connecting streets, but the creek had limited development of these roads, and the margins occupied with “Chinese Shanties”.

Between 1879 and 1889 the amount of area for Vegetable Gardens increased dramatically, from 3 acres to over 21 acres, as shown on the map below (page 214). The reduced flooding allowing for farming and Shanties to expand, filling the entire lowland zone. The new plank road to the east and a new wooden bridge spanned new developments towards Jefferson to the west.

1890s – Trestle bridge, Chinese vegetable gardens, Portland High School Courtesy Oreg. Hist. Soc. Research Lib., bb007389

The Creek was still intact through this zone as well, however starting to get chopped up with development on the edges. The ability of the Chinese to extract maximum production from this space was notable, as Wong mentions: “The immigrant gardeners… acted collectively, sharing the labor and the profits as they continued to farm the low-lying ground and slopes of the Tanner Creek Gulch. The Chinese applied their extraordinary agricultural skills, shared by Cantonese immigrants of rural background, to successfully cultivate the land.” (212)

As seen above, at the time, there was some development, but more residents were moving near here and building larger houses, and for a short time the two lived in close proximity with little issue.. “Perhaps the year-round beauty of the gardens and the convenience of easily available low-cost produce enable two such economically disparate and cultural distinctive social groups to coexist for many years.” (215)

The 1901 map (below, from page 216) shows the impact of a new resident, The Multnomah Amateur Athletic Club (now the current The MAC ), which displaced some of these gardens by moving into 5 acres to the north of the creek, using the natural slope as a viewing amphitheater and building a clubhouse. They also constructed considerable raised plank infrastructure on Alder Street, which eliminated gardens below there (but did keep the creek free flowing for a while longer). Farmers expanded the Shanties in existing areas, and moved to the area west of Jefferson where they installed new gardens and Shanties. The creek it seems to also have started disappearing more in this period. The drawing doesn’t show a key to connote what dashed lines mean versus solid, but it’s probably not a stretch to imply much more culverting of flows, and the plank roads also serving to visually disconnect the creek from views of residents.

By 1908 the map (from page 217) expansion of the city was reducing (to around 11 acres) the area of gardens even more as land became more desirable. The Creek was removed through conversion of bridges and plank roads into surface streets, which filled up gulches. This was a product of one of the “… city’s long-range projects for controlling flooding, raising the grade to accommodate roads, and encouraging urban residential development.” (218) The area near the Multnomah Amateur Athletic Club purchased the land and “over the next few years, both Tanner Creek and the land adjacent to it were filled to permit final construction of the athletic club and nearby homes.” (219)

Together with a number of ordinances aimed at reducing the number of Chinese vendors selling products, and finally just outright banning street peddlers in certain areas. As Wong concludes:

“Portland’s urban growth and expansion into the Tanner Creek area, the filling in of the creek, and the city ordinance that prohibited the rural Chinese from earning a living did irreparable harm to the fragile gardening community. A reporter’s prescient statement in 1889, that the time would likely come when ‘the gulches [would be] filled up and used as building site,’ had come to pass, and the Chinese Vegetable Gardens community disappeared from the record after 1910.” (220)

It’s a wonder as well that it lasted as long as it did, within the rapid urban expansion and the racist undercurrents at the time. The map sequence is a great snapshot in time to see Tanner Creek in the midst of Portland’s urbanization towards the end of the 19th Century. While, it is not totally clear graphically which portions of Tanner Creek were still remaining and which were buried, it shows a valuable sequential picture of the development of this portion of the city and how land shifted from that which had little value to some (and immense value for growing food for others) to becoming more necessary for further development. Gardens and creeks presented barriers to this progress and were slowly eroded and ultimately erased. Wong’s ‘Sweet Cakes, Long Journey‘ is an essential picture for understanding Chinese life and contributions to the history in Portland, of which the above is just one story. However, it is a critical one in terms of hidden hydrology, showing the displacement of Chinatown Vegetable Gardens in tandem with development that slowly buried Tanner Creek, forever losing it’s productivity as a creek and its ability to support agriculture in the city.

HEADER: 1892 Image of Chinese Gardens and Homes in Tanner Creek Gulch, Photo courtesy of Gholston Collection – image via Oregon Humanities, “The Farmers of Tanner Creek“

18 September 2018 19 September 2018

A First Map of Portland?

Jason Kingcity, creeks, general, history, maps, oregon, places, portland, rivers3 Comments

There’s a plethora of early maps of Portland, many of which I’ve recently included and cataloged here for reference. One of those maps I’d never seen before recently, oddly, is this sketch-map made by William Clark (yes, he of Lewis & Clark expedition fame) from April 3, 1806, featuring a sketch of the Multnomah River, “given by several different Tribes of Indians near its entrance into the Columbia.” The original link comes from this Oregon Encyclopedia article on the Wapato (Wappato) Valley Indians, found whilst researching native settlements in Portland, notably those around the important confluence of the Willamette and Columbia but getting a feel for pre-settlement use of waterways. The map is found in Volume Four of the Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1804-1806, which constitutes the return trip of the Corps of Discovery from Fort Clatsop on the Oregon Coast back towards the east. The entry and fold-out map includes a remarkable amount of information including natural and hydrological features, as well as references to many of the tribes as alluded to in the title.

It’s amazing to see the detail of the map and density of information, in what I assume was field drawn, probably in a canoe, fending off bears while simultaneously collecting plant samples. I jest, but I’m constantly amazed at the ability of early explorers to represent places quickly and with much For me, at least, it was much easier to conceptualize graphically if you rotate the map so north is facing up, so the subsequent enlargements flip this over. This enlarged view shows the key features at the confluence, perhaps not drawn to scale, but remarkably accurate, including to the east, both the Washougal River (noted as Teal) and the Sandy River (noted as the Quick Sand). There are also notes on the various encampments on river banks, such as the Nechacolee and Nechacokee around Blue Lake in Portland on the south bank, Shoto up around modern day Vancouver Lake to the north and many more smaller encampments of the local Multnomah and Kathlamet tribes. To the west, around Wappato Island (modern day Sauvie Island) which was home to Multnomah, Clannahqueh, Cathlahcommahtup and others on Sauvie Island on the Columbia River, and around the other side of the island, known as the Multnomah Channel. See this additional post from the Oregon Encyclopedia for Lewis & Clark’s estimate of the Portland Basin Chinookian Village tribal populations here as well for more detail.

The same zone taken from a Google Earth image shows the general location of and features. The fidelity of the geography is a bit off (it’s a sketch map) but it’s all there.

Further south, the geography is a bit more sparse, but does include the upriver span of the Willamette (called here the ‘Multnomah River’) and it’s connection to the Clackamas River (heading east) including encampments of Clackamas along that river, and perhaps mis-estimating a bit how far away Mt. Jefferson actually was (see below)… and ‘The Falls’ which denotes Willamette Falls, which was an important settlements along this important confluence, and Charcowah, and Cushhooks near the Falls….

The same view of current day area, again with a bit of misalignment of the rivers, which probably comes from the map being adapted from a drawing done by a local tribal elder, but the general features there.

The text supplements the map somewhat, with stories of meeting a group of Shah-ha-la Nation and showing them the Multnomah:

“we readily prevailed on them to give us a sketch of this river which they drew on a Mat with a coal, it appeared that this river which they call Mult-nó-mah discharged itself behind the Island we call the image canoe island, as we had left this island to the south in decending & assending the river we had never seen it. they informed us that it was a large river and runs a considerable distance to the south between the Mountains.”

Clark takes a party to explore, and encounters huts from various tribes, along with harvesting of wappato and roots via canoes along the rivers, and found the hidden entrance to the Willamette (which he refers to as the Multnomah River, along with the tribes on Wappato Island and noted the depth of the. He mentions that he “…can plainly see Mt. Jefferson” which may allude to it’s proximity on the one map. As he continued to explore he mentions being “satisfyed of the size and magnitude of this great river which must water that vast tract of Country between the western range of mountains and those on the sea coast and as far S. as the Waters of Callifonia…” which if not totally true, does allude to the size of the Willamette drainage in at least draining a fair portion of NW Oregon. He continues by visiting a long house, and learns the constant refrain of deaths from small pox and starvation. He asks for a map of the area and the people from one of the elders. “I provailed on an old man to draw me a sketch of the Multnomar River and give me the names of the nations resideing on it which he readiliy done, and gave me the names of 4 nations who reside on this river two of them very noumerous. The first is Clark-a-mus nation reside on a small river… the 2.d is the Cush-hooks who reside on the NE side below the falls.”

They note the entrance to the Multnomah river being “142 miles up the Columbia river” from the Pacific, include the sketched map, and then are off, up-river, continuing eastward.

An excerpt of the journal, the specific passage of which is available via this Oregon Encyclopedia post here as well.

15 May 2018

Flowing South to Portland

Jason Kingcity, creeks, explorations, general, history, maps, oregon, outreach, places, portland, projects, seattle, washingtonLeave a Comment

Some news on the project front, which partially explains the slow output on this end lately in terms of hidden hydrology updates: I’m moving from Seattle back to Portland. As regular readers know, the project origins are firmly rooted in Portland, including plenty of documentation and expansion of ideas around Tanner Springs Creek (seen below), and maybe I will finally track down one of those elusive ‘I Kayaked Tanner Creek‘ t-shirts of legend. Anyway, happy to announce this news, and Portland folks, let me know if you’re interested in some exploring in coming months.

There’s also a plethora of other areas to explore, and also to compare and contrast the unique dichotomy of Portland as a river city and Seattle as more of a ocean & lake city, and what that means/meant for development. On that note, one item I’ve not announced is some of the work figuring out the best format for a Hidden Hydrology Atlas that will span both Seattle and Portland – so stay tuned for more of this as technology and funding aligns. For now you can see the early version of the online example of interactive maps I’m testing out using a combination of Mapbox and my GIS database of information. Early days, but the potential is there, and it will expand into something more comprehensive and multi-media.

While I did get to explore a number of Seattle hidden streams, there’s so much more to do and lots to document for Ravenna, Yesler, and Green Lake, and hopefully coming back up to do more investigations. In the interim, one of my explorations I documented here in Seattle from last summer, Licton Springs, was the departure point for an essay I wrote recently for The Nature of Cities that was just published this week. Read ‘Map and Explore: Hidden Hydrology’ for some thoughts on exploring our places and connecting with our culture, geography and ecology.

So, stay tuned as projects, posts, and explorations will all pick up over the summer months. And as always, thanks for reading. See you all in Portland soon.

-Jason

16 January 2018

As January is quick turning into London month, we’re wrapped up on the summaries of available books on the subject, including works by Barton, Myers, Bolton, Talling, and Fathers, running a gamut of approaches to walking, studying, and mapping Lost Rivers. I’d also be remiss if I failed to call back a 2016 post on another take on the subject, Iain Sinclair’s 2013 book ‘Swimming to Heaven: London’s Lost Rivers‘ which rounds out my collection on the subject. The amazing amount of hidden hydrology literature provides a solid foundation, however, it is merely the ~~tip of a massive iceberg~~ visible layer of a vast and sprawling underground complex of content, and a starting point for discussing many of the other resources and discussion around the subject, including art, history, exploration, and maps.

A quick search of London and Lost Rivers or something along those lines yields plenty of material, including additional resource from the sources as diverse as London Geezer, which contains an extensive amount of information, to city specific hidden hydrology projects such as the Lost Rivers Project in Camden. A lot of ink (at least digitally) has been spent on this topic, with articles from BT like “8 of London’s lost rivers you probably didn’t know about” to BBC “The lost rivers that lie beneath London?“, the Telegraph (authored by none other than Tom Bolton, “The fascinating history of London’s lost rivers“, and perhaps the most prolific, the Londonist which covers this topic often, with titles like “The Secrets of London’s Lost Rivers” and info on specific rivers like “Counter’s Creek: In Search of London’s Unknown River” (authored by David Fathers) to a multi-part “Lost Rivers from Above: The Tyburn“.

Without going into extravagant detail and barrage you with too many links (there are over 100 I have at this point), it’s safe to say that London is by far the city with the most coverage, and it continues to emerge (such as this interactive virtual reality tour on the Guardian of London Sewers), showing that it’s a topic that continues to intrigue people. For now, we’ll focus on some projects that work directly in the realm of these lost rivers, interpreting them directly through exploration and indirectly through art.

ART/EXPLORATIONS

Much of the interpretive work around hidden hydrology comes from art, in it’s various forms, and much of the art includes exploration, so I’m combining these two ideas in one here. We’ve previously featured artist Cristina Iglesias and her new installation Forgotten Streams in London as more of a site specific example, interpreting the Walbrook in water features outside of the new Bloomberg London HQ.

A spatial approach comes from Sandra Crisp, and her video project from 2010-2012 “Mapping London’s Subterranean Rivers”. This work was “originally made as a site-specific installation for a group exhibition 2010 held in the semi derelict basement under Shoreditch Town Hall, London” A soundtrack was added later and you can check out the full video at the link above.

A short blurb (with my one small edit) from the site: “The film allows the viewer to fly through a 3D map of London, revealing the sites of ancient and subterranean rivers based on research using old maps and books such as ~~Nigel~~ Nicholas Barton’s ‘The Lost rivers of London’. Evoking existing and long disappeared waterways that bubble unseen beneath our feet. Including; The Fleet, Tyburn, Westbourne, Quaggy, Counters Creek, Neckinger and more…..”

A detail shows the intricacy of the layering, in this case highlighting the River Wandle – but the stills don’t do it justice – check out the video for full effect.

Crisp also breaks down the research on the piece, where she shows a hybrid version of Barton’s map that was the basis for the piece, along with some of the ‘making-of’ info that’s pretty interesting.

Amy Sharrocks, a London based artist, sculptor and film-maker, created “London is A River City” from 2009. As she mentions in her bio “For the last four years I have been making work about Londoners and our relationship to water, inviting people to swim across the city with me, floating boats to drift on swimming pools, lake and rivers, tying people together to trace lost rivers and re-create a memory of water.”

The project included walks of lost rivers, which involved using dowsing as a methodology for walks of the Westbourne, Tyburn, Effra, Fleet, Walbrook, and Neckinger rivers. Each of these are beautifully documented (with PDFs as well for download), and worth exploring in more detail. Per her statement “Why I’m Doing it?“, she mentions:

“Tracing these rivers has been a process of layering: new stories over old, our footsteps over others, roads and railways over rivers. Uncovering a past of London I knew nothing about. Connecting to things submerged beneath our streets has uncovered a currency of the city, and enabled a kind of palm reading of London.

The idea of walking is vital to this endeavor, coupled with the dowsing gives it a pyschogeographic slant. From her site: “These rivers lost their claim to space in this city, long ago paved over, with their inconvenient tides and smells, to make way for faster roads and railways. These river walks have championed a human speed, that stumbles, stops to look at things, slows down when it is tired. There is a connection to the speed of water, a meandering dérive to battle the rising pace of modern life. We took the measure of London by our own strides, pacing out the city at our own speed.” Flash-enabled website headaches aside, it’s a good project worth some time to dive in. Read some coverage from the Independent on the Walbrook walk. You can see more about some other work as well at SWIM .

Another project, this time with a poetic bent, comes from via ADRIFT, a project by poet Tom Chivers envisioned as a “…personal interrogation of climate through poetry.”, where he “sets out to explore climate as culture, mapping out the territory of climate science within urban space.” The site has the full list of writings, and a nice archive of some related materials are also on the site. It’s a project of Cape Farewell, which has a great mission of “bringing creatives, scientists and informers together to stimulate a cultural narrative that will engage and inspire a sustainable and vibrant future society”, namely climate change. An image from the ADRIFT site as part of a photoset “Walking the Neckinger: Waterloo to Bermondsey”

A graphic design work Hidden Rivers of London by Geertje Debets takes a different, more visual approach, as “A research on the letterpress technique, while developing the concept and design for the visualisation of the underground rivers of London. London’s terrifying under half… Sometimes you can catch a glimpse of this underground life, but when you look better, you find the underground world everywhere, especially the underground rivers. The names of the underground rivers are used in street names, places, houses, companies, schools and orchestras. The locations of these places show you how the river floats.”

The work of Stephen Walter got a bunch of press a few years back, with this map of London that “…traces the lesser known streams, sewers, springs and culverts of the capital in intense, hand-drawn detail.” Some enlargements of these maps, via the Guardian:

Another of Walter’s work that is worth seeing is the 2012 “London Subterranea“, which “…aims to shine a light on this clandestine infrastructure and it presents perhaps the first comprehensive map, open to the public, which places so many of its features alongside each other. It geographically tracks the routes of London’s Lost Rivers, its main sewers, the tube network and it’s ‘ghost’ stations including the Crossrail project. It also pinpoints archeological finds, ruins, known plague pits, secret governmental tunnels, the Mail Rail and the Water Ring Main tunnels. Epithets to the ‘underworld’ of crime, and the scenes of notable killings such as the acid-bath murders get a look in. So too does the site of the infamous Tyburn Tree and its many buried corpses that still lie in its wake undiscovered.”

On the topic of the subterranean, photography as well plays a part, with many of the London area rivers featured in a National Geographic photo-essay, “11 Rivers Forced Underground“. A book on the subject I’d like to pick up, Subterranean London: Cracking the Capitol (2014), is described via a blurb from Amazon: “Bradley L. Garrett has worked with explorers of subterranean London to collect an astonishing array of images documenting forbidden infiltrations into the secret bowels of the city. This book takes readers through progressively deeper levels of historical London architecture below the streets. Beautifully designed to allow for detailed viewing and featuring bespoke map illustrations by artist Stephen Walter, this unique book takes readers to locations few dare to go, and even fewer succeed in accessing.”

The publication had some acclaim, with one of the images winning an architectural photography award, along with some controversy as noted in the CityLab article “The Photography Book London Officials Never Wanted You to See” which outlines some of the sticky issues of urban exploration, access, liability, and such. Content addresses more than just hidden waters, but does include some amazing photographs as seen below.

This resource on London sewers from 2011 that looks to no longer be actively maintained, is ‘Sub-Urban: Main Drainage of the Metropolis‘ which looks at the drainage via sewer exploration and photography: “Alongside more traditional study and research practices, such as access to archival materials and the use of other historic and literary resources, we apportion equal importance to the hands on scrutiny of our subject matter. Taking time to explore, investigate and photograph London’s sewers affords us a greater understanding of the often complex architecture and gives practical insight and knowledge that cannot be gained from any amount of time spent thumbing through books and documents.” There’s a number of links on the site to other endeavors, as well as some great imagery, both current of their explorations, and some historical work, along with the timeless phrasing of the section “Close Encounters of the Turd Kind“.

And when you’re done exploring, you can always grab a pint at Lost Rivers Brewing Company and drink the range of available beers inspired by the rivers themselves, and perhaps peruse Ben Aaronovitch’s 2011 book “Rivers of London“, where he created a story around various water deities and river spirits on the Thames and areas of London.

HISTORY

The concept of hidden hydrology is intertwined with history, so threads weave through all of these art installations and explorations. The history of the development of London is fascinating and overwhelming, but there are some great resources like British History Online, which has resources on the topic like the six volume “Old and New London” written in the late 19th century, to sites like Connected Histories, which provide timeline based search tools, or links from the London Historians’ Blog.

On the topic of Lost Rivers, the history of the Big Stink is pretty key historical moment, which was a vital impetus behind what became the modern sewage system and led to the demise of many urban rivers. The idea of this also led to “a piece of Victorian science fiction considered to be the first modern tale of urban apocalypse”, William Delisle Hay’s 1880 novel “The Doom of the Great City”, which is covered in depth via this article in the Public Domain Review.

You can also access primary sources, such as following along with Sir Richard Phillips as he explored the edges of London in 1817, in “A Morning’s Walk from London to Kew“.

Some visual history comes via ArchPaper “What a difference 400 years makes: Modern and medieval London contrasted in hand-drawn cityscapes” which takes historic drawing viewpoints and redraws them showing the current urban configuration.

A fascinating thread that came from some of the books was the legacy of Spas, Springs, and Wells that have been a long part of the history of London. There are some good sites to engage with this history, such as London’s Holy Wells, or the resource Holy and Healing Wells, highlighting around around the globe, including London. There’s some great documentation such as the book mentioned by Barton, Foord’s “Springs, streams and spas of London: history and associations” from 1910, and one mentioned to me by David Fathers, Sunderland’s “Old London’s spas, baths, and wells” from 1915, both great resources for hidden hydrology. An illustration from Foord, showing a 1733 engraving of one of these places, Tunbridge Wells:

The history of the Thames River Postman is a bit more random but worth a read, outlining H.L. Evans who delivered mail along the Thames. “The Thames Postmen played an important role connecting people who lived on the river with the rest of the world. They also became something of a local celebrity being a constant in the fast changing landscape of the river. Considering that the job was not without its dangers, it was remarkable that the Evans dynasty managed to continue for over a century.”

A visual resource COLLAGE, is an image database of over 250,000 images from The London Metropolitan Archives and the Guildhall Art Gallery, and also includes a picture map so you can locate them spatially in London. A quick perusal found me in the Serpentine in Hyde Park, which showed this 1795 “View of Cheesecake House, Hyde Park.”

The concept of the larger regional picture is the website Vision of Britain over time, which is full of great information, and specific to the landscape is the book ‘Hidden Histories: A Spotter’s Guide to the British Landscape‘ by Mary-Ann Ochota which helps decipher the immensity of history through interpreting landforms and other traces. From a review in Geographical:

“There is so much history to the British landscape. What with its stone circles, hill forts, mines and umpteenth century cottages, the land is marked with centuries of use. This can make it hard to read, like a blackboard written on hundreds of times and never erased”

As you can see, plenty of great work has happened and is still happening in London. This is not an attempt to be comprehensive, and there’s tons more out there on specific rivers and locations, so consider this a teaser of sorts and google away for more. I’m trying to find a simple way to share the mass of my resources and links online for further reading and reference, so stay tuned there, and future posts will likely expand on this rich history around hidden hydrology. As a last reference to London, the last post in the series for now, following the lead of New York City, will be on maps.

HEADER: Hand drawn map of the Rivers of London by Stephen Walter.

22 January 2017 22 January 2017

The Public Land Survey System

Jason Kingcase study, city, general, history, landscape, maps, places, portland, projects, seattle2 Comments

Map-making is an inherently iterative process. Often finding an appropriate base layer is vital to providing a solid foundation for this process. In this spirit, I’ve been working on the digitization of the basic Public Land Survey System (PLSS), or the Cadastral Map series for both Portland and Seattle from the 1850s as base maps for the hidden hydrology studies of both cities. This data, which is the most uniform and complete snapshot of the landscape of the west, is a great resource for the locations of historic streams and other features. Because the use of the shared cartography of Townships with their corresponding Section grids, the PLSS maps provides a link to very accurately georeference the historic with the modern. Prior to diving into some of this work, I thought it prudent to discuss the Public Lands maps themselves.

There’s plenty of history out there for those in the mood, and my plan isn’t a deep dive, but more of some context. A good starting place is ‘The National Map’ page by the USGS on the subject of the PLSS, and a brief history page from the BLM. Everything else you may want to know about the Cadastral Survey is found at the Bureau of Land Management page of Tools, including the massive 1983 History of the Rectangular Survey System by C.A. White (46mb PDF). The terminology of the PLSS, is somewhat synonymous with the concept of Cadastral Survey, although in reality there is a difference, as one (PLSS) is the thing itself mapping the United States, and the other (Cadastral) a type of survey, defined as “having to do with the boundaries of land parcels.” Cadastral surveys of all types are done all over the world, and the origin comes from the “…Latin base term Cadastre referring to a registry of lands. So actually Cadastral Surveying is surveying having to do with determining and defining land ownership and boundaries” (via Cadastral Survey).

After the Revolutionary War, there was huge amounts of available land, and the need to distribute and sell tracts became necessary for the new survey. While the original colonies were laid out pre-PLSS using more traditional metes and bounds, but due to the immensity of the effort, Thomas Jefferson proposed a system of surveying massive open tracts of land. The Land Ordinance of 1785 set up the system and the subsequent 1787 Northwest Ordinance kick-started the process (although it referred to the areas NW of the colonies, not the actual NW Territories).

The surveying moved across the country over the next hundred years – as The extent of the surveying is captured in the map below, starting in Ohio and Florida on the east and encompassing the majority of the midwest, plains, and west including Alaska (which is still being surveyed today), with the only exception being Texas. Almost 1.5 billion acres were included.

Anyone who has looked at a survey will be familiar with the language of the PLSS. Any legal land description could be generated starting with “…the State, Principal Meridian name, Township and Range designations with directions, and the section number”. There are many versions of this diagram out there, but it breaks down the foundations of the PLSS using the Principal Meridians and Base Lines, and breaking the grid into Townships and the 36 smaller Sections.

The markers are vital to maintaining the integrity of the grid over centuries, and there are approximately 2.6 million section corners across the US. An interesting link to the ‘Corner Identification and Markings’ shows some of the layout specifics and one of the common protection measures employed for the corner monuments, circling the monument in a circle of stone. There is a shared geography continuity between the principal Willamette Meridian, established in 1851, with bisects both Portland and Seattle, and the shared baseline which runs parallel a bit south of the border between the two states.

In the Pacific Northwest, and there’s some reverence for the particular. The Principal Meridian Project is pretty fun, and has some great photos of the Initial Point (the crossing of the Principal Meridian and the Base Line seen above), found in Willamette Stone State Heritage Site in Portland.

“The Willamette Meridian was established June 4th, 1851 and runs from the Canadian border to the northern border of California. The base line runs from the Pacific Ocean to the Idaho border. All property in Washington and Oregon is referenced to this point. The original stake was replaced by a large stone in 1855 and is now part of The Willamette Stone Park in Portland.”

The PLSS is still updated, so if you want a deep dive in this topic, you can reference, the 1973 Manual of Surveying Instructions , which provides the most current info on PLSS surveying. Rather than a mere history lesson, the concept of the PLSS is vital to the understanding the ability to reference historical maps and . This is less important for East Coast but for a large portion of the United States, is the vital tool for hidden hydrology work. Also the extent of coverage that was all completed within a short timeframe (at least in local areas) provides a measure of comparability between areas.

A typical survey map shows the detail of the maps, in this case Township No. 1 N. Range No. 1 East, in the Willamette Meridian, with downtown Portland in the bottom of the map, and showing some of the topographic features, ponds, and streams. IN this case, the original 1852 map was redrawn in the early 1900s, which is pretty common. This info is downloadable via the BLM site.

And the typical surveyor notes, which are a tough read, but shows the information which was later interpreted by the mapmakers, based on the surveyors notations as they followed the specific section lines within the individual townships. The interpretation is a key item that implies the ‘filling in the blanks’ of these maps, as each line was not individually surveyed.

To see this in action, and to explain the correlation between georeferenced history maps and the modern GIS, you see the rectangular areas of the map Sections (this map is a composite of the map above (T01sn01e) and the Township below (T01s01e). This is the area in the Taggart neighborhood, in this case the upper Taggart Basin, showing the Willamette River (light blue), some small water bodies and streams (darker blue), as well as riparian wetlands (green).

The same area is georeferenced with modern GIS info (in this case the 2010 roads, parks, schools), and you can see the Section Lines (orange) that register on maps. The Taggart streams have long been buried, along with the filling of the wetlands along the Willamette for industrial lands. The modern topography is also shown, and you can see the tracings of the landscape channels still evident today.

The ability to tap into other map tools, in this case digital elevation ‘hillshade’ model (of the Lower Taggart Basin) again give some context for new and old, and graphically show some of the landform that exists today. There’s no shortage of analysis once the PLSS info is referenced. Lots more specific info on these maps in Portland and Seattle coming soon.

While amazingly detailed, the maps are, as mentioned, somewhat variable in nature due to the interpretation of survey notes and mapmaking. Thus, the PLSS becomes a great starting point, with good coverage and georeferencing, some they become a framework for overlaying other maps and data. Also, while the surveying standards were the same, as I will point out in a future posts, the quality and legibility of the maps often depended on the mapmakers themselves, and maps of one location could have very different information. This is evident from looking at Seattle versus Portland, and what i feel is a specific quality of maps in the latter versus the former.

Endnote: Having grown up in North Dakota, I was very aware both of the grid, and the ubiquitous grid-shift – as the rhythm of gravel roads cut through the state if perhaps more evident and legible when each ‘back road’ follows a grid. The excerpt below from Fathom shows the amount of contiguous one miles squares.

This making it infinitely possible to chart one’s path multiple ways to get to locations, and also comes with long stretches of arrow-straight road ending with a curve or more often a tee. Many a speeding or slightly inebriated driver was been surprised by this phenomenon. This comes up perusing such Instagram accounts like The Jefferson Grid, and for me more recently someone linked to re-posted from an article in Hyperallergic, featuring work of artist Gerco de Ruijter from 2015, as he masterfully documents this using a series of Google Earth images.

From his site:

“By superimposing a rectangular grid on the earth surface, a grid built from exact square miles, the spherical deviations have to be fixed. After all, the grid has only two dimensions. The north-south boundaries in the grid are on the lines of longitude, which converge to the north. The roads that follow these boundaries must dogleg every twenty-four miles to counter the diminishing distances: Grid Corrections”

For more on this, check out Geoff Manaugh’s post from a few years back and his longer article in Travel & Leisure magazine. And for a bit of bonus, check out Gerco de Ruijter short video ‘Grid Corrections’ (i prefer with the sound off, but let me know).