Map of pre-European settlement vegetation
at Midewin NTP

Reconstructed from Public Land Surveyor's Notebooks


The map above was created using bearing tree data collected by land surveyors Daniel Miller and D. A. Spaulding in 1821 and 1834. An example of a notebook page from which the original data for this map was gathered is shown as a link within the Land Survey Section of this Web Exhibit.

The map is interactive. The user may select specific features on the map to display more information on them, or ask for information on a specific feature, such as a type of tree.

Additionally, users may change the appearance of the map by hiding or showing features such as streams and section boundaries, or zooming in or out.

The column to the left of the map under the Execute and Query buttons allows the user to select for trees, section boundaries, streams, and if one scrolls down a bit, one can even turn off the Midewin map boundaries (cream colored). Trees, boundaries, and streams can be turned on and off by pointing and clicking on the box under the desired feature. Under trees, for example, if one clicks on the box, the x disappears, and the trees disappear from the map. Clicking on the box again restores the trees to the map.

Regions of the map or certain features may be studied more closely by using the select button. The information on the selected features, appears in the window below the map.

If one selects several trees, they appear as a different color. One can use the zoom button to enlarge the selected region. This is a helpful feature, because trees that are close to one another can appear as one point instead of two at a lower resolution. In order to clear the selected features, use the clear button. Unzoom restores the map to the original resolution.

The Query button and associated command window to the right of the button allows the user to obtain spatial information about a given feature. If, for example, one is interested in locating all of the Ash trees on the site, the user moves the cursor to the window to the right of the Query button, types (in capital letters) the word ASH and clicks on the query button. The ash trees show up on the map in a different color, and information on the number of trees appears in the window below the map.

More help on using the map is available at: https://skyscraper.forunecity.com/redmond/829/tutorial.html