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Show Big Task Ended By Map Maker Travels 300,000 Miles to Sketch Topographical And Climatic Works. NEW YORK. Two years of war have engendered, among other things, a great public interest in geography as manifested by the various map changes which have been made under military pressure. To Prof. John Hastings of the City College economics department, however, how-ever, this transient interest must seem like the proverbial drop' of water in -the ocean when compared to the 20 years of his own map-making activity. Dr. Hastings, who teaches economic eco-nomic and anthropological geography geogra-phy at the college, has made more than 1,500 topographical and climatic cli-matic maps and has traveled 300,-000 300,-000 miles through every continent to make his own measurements and observations. If all his maps were tacked together they would encompass encom-pass an area of 2,500 square feet. He has also perfected his own meth- od of mixing paints and has copyrighted copy-righted a new method of depicting climate. Completes Long Task. In the quiet of his classroom, the stocky, gray-haired professor recently re-cently put the finishing touches on a map of Montana. This was not t just another map, he said, indicat ing with a sweep of his arm the innumerable in-numerable charts which hung on the wall or lay in neatly stacked rolls in a corner of the room. This was the forty-eighth state map, on a scale of one inch to eight miles, and the completion of a ,project which had caused him to cross the continent 14 times. He wished, the professor said, he had enough wall space to enable him to display all the state maps together but thatwould entail the use of 900 square feet. The college, he pointed point-ed out, could not spare the space so he guessed he'd have to continue showing the states individually. Dr. Hastings came to City College in 1924 after having studied at the Universities of Berlin, Utrecht, Manchester, Munich, Geneva, Michigan Mich-igan and Jena. He received his doc-itorate doc-itorate in geography from the latter institution in 1909. Found Maps Inadequate, When he began to teach geography geogra-phy at City College, he found that all available maps were inadequate. iThis led to his prodigious work in making his own maps. He recalled that he had only 30 students in his first class. Now, he Said proudly, over 200 students reg- |
