Theater of the World

by Thomas Reinertsen Berg

  A NORWEGIAN MAP OF NORWAY | In 1756, Norwegian officer Ove Andreas Wangensteen mobilised his troops to the Danish city of Rendsburg on the German border. War had broken out in Europe yet again, but for once Denmark-Norway had managed to keep out of the fray, and Wangensteen was therefore able to commit to surveying activities. His Charta over Kongeriget Norge, aftegnet i Rendsborg, Aar 1759 af O. A. Wangensteen (Map of the Kingdom of Norway, Drawn in Rendsburg in the Year 1759 by O. A. Wangensteen) was a draft version of a larger map that Wangensteen completed two years later: Kongeriget Norge afdelet i sine füre Stifter, nemlig Aggershuus, Christiansand, Bergenhuus og Tronhjem, samt underliggende Provstier. Med Kongelig Allernaadigst Tilladelse og Bevilling forfærdiget Aar 1761 af O. A. Wangensteen Capitain ved det Norske ArtillerieCorps (The Kingdom of Norway, Divided into its Four Dioceses, namely Akershus, Kristiansand, Bergenhus and Trondheim, and underlying Deaneries. Completed under the most gracious permission and licence of His Majesty the King in the year 1761 by O. A. Wangensteen, Captain of the Norwegian Artillery Corps).

  With its anything but round or rectangular shape, Norway has always been a difficult country to represent on a single sheet of paper. In 1680, Dutch cartographer Frederik de Wit had been the first person to solve this problem by dividing the country in two and presenting the northern and southern regions side by side. Wangensteen followed this model, which resulted in the region of ‘Nordland og Finmarken under Tronhiems Stift’ (‘Nordland and Finnmark under the Diocese of Trondheim’) being somewhat unfairly reproduced to a much smaller scale. But the map provides a good overview of Norwegian trade and industry at the time, with its fishermen, hunters, loggers and shipping sector. Kiøb-Stæder (trading hubs), Sølvværck og Gruber (silver mines), Kaabberværck (copper works) and Iernværck (ironworks) are marked using dedicated symbols, and in Hurdal and Eidsvoll a Glaspusterie (glass-blower) and Guldmine (gold mine) are marked.

  Wangensteen clearly saw that there was a German market for maps. In the cartouche of his map he wrote in German: ‘The German nation should note that in the names where a V is used, this shall be read as a W; likewise a double aa shall not be pronounced as a long a, but almost like an o. Therefore Vaage in Nordland shall not be read as “Faage”, but rather as “Woge”; likewise Vaaler in Solöer shall not be read as “Faler”, but as “Woler”, etc.’

  Wangensteen’s map was the first map of Norway to be both drawn and published by a Norwegian cartographer. It was also clearly more accurate than any of those produced abroad–two years after the map was published, Norwegian historian Gerhard Schøning described how ‘up until now, we have lacked correct and comprehensive geographical descriptions of the Kingdom of Norway […]. Everything produced by foreigners and outsiders in this context has been quite deficient, and serves more to confuse than to inform, so that from their maps one may learn only as much about Norway’s correct division, extent, location and place names as ordinary maps may teach us of the true nature of the Great Tartary and those countries that lay deep within Africa and America.’

  But the first edition of Wangensteen’s map featured a grave error. The border between Norway and Sweden passed straight through Femunden, where the Swedes had originally set it–Wangensteen had failed to keep up to date with the latest border negotiations. He drew a new, correct border on the second coloured edition of his map, but never quite managed to erase the old borderline–it remains on his map to this day.

  FORESTRY MAPS | During his work, Wangensteen searched in vain for some maps he knew had been created by the Generalforstamtet–the forestry commission–twenty years earlier. The maps were part of the first attempt to regulate both public and private forestry in Norway, as in the 1600s and 1700s fear of deforestation was great. In 1688, half of all the timber mills in southern and eastern Norway were closed because ‘the forests in many places have been destroyed.’

  The silver mine at Kongsberg was one of the largest forest owners, and German brothers Johann Georg and Franz Philip von Langen travelled to the area in 1737 to map not only the silver mine’s forests, but all the forests in the country, whether belonging to the king or others.

  The task of drawing maps of the outer coastal areas–‘in so far as forests may be found on the coastal mainland’–was allocated to seaman and cartographer Andreas Heitmann. Having been granted a boat and the funds to hire a sailor, Heitmann set out to chart the coast north of Trondheim in the spring of 1743. Due to headwinds and some remaining survey work between Karmøy and Bergen, he didn’t arrive in Trondheim until August, and by then it was too late to start work on the regions to the north. But the next summer, Heitmann worked his way up towards the municipality of Træna, and by the time he was finished had mapped the coast all the way up to Andnæs (Andsnes) on the border to the county of Finnmark.

  An anonymous offshoot of Heitmann’s map was created a couple of years later. The Norlandia Map is an amateurish but colourful and partly improved reproduction of Heitmann’s original, drawn with a specific purpose in mind: to reproduce in detail the Nordfahrleden–‘the sailing route’–through the straits and between islands and reefs. From the strait between Leka and Gutvik in the south, a dotted line follows a small boat as it sails along the coast until it reaches Andsnes in ‘Pars Finmarchiæ’ in the north.

  The forestry commission never managed to map the entire country. Christian VI had wished that ‘across this Kingdom, started maps shall be completed of the entire country,’ but this was an unpopular measure among forest owners and timber merchants, who didn’t like the idea of any restrictions being placed on their activities, and when the king died in 1746, the mapping of the forests was stopped.

  The forestry maps were shrouded in secrecy from the very start. In 1743, a diocese governor wrote to the forestry commission requesting a copy of the map of the Diocese of Kristiansand, but was told that no copy could be supplied without permission from the king. After the commission was dissolved, the maps were immediately stashed away in a cupboard in Copenhagen, and it was not until 1772, when the Swedes could be heard rattling their sabres, that General Heinrich Wilhelm von Huth took the maps with him when he was sent to Norway to ready the troops. Here, they would become part of the foundations for the first modern, scientific surveying of the country.

  NEW BRANCHES | The story of Scavenius’s map shows how in the 1500s and 1600s, maps of Europe travelled the continent and were used by those in need of the latest and most accurate data. Cartographers became rivals, vying to be the first to get hold of the latest information–geographical information could be converted into jangling coins in one’s pocket. But at the same time, various types of maps became increasingly differentiated from each other. Maps influenced by religion–a legacy of the Middle Ages taking a partly new form in Protestant areas–were still important; traders required greater numbers of maps in connection with their activities; and the state and military needed maps they could use for purposes of administration, management and warfare–a trend that would grow stronger with the mapping of Denmark, France, Great Britain, Germany and Norway over the coming years.

  Detail from the Cituations Cart af Kongs Wingers Festning (Situational map of Kongsvinger Fortress) from 1750 by an unknown cartographer. The map was drawn during the construction of new ramparts: ‘CCC endnu ikke ferdig’ means ‘CCC not yet finished’. The flagstaff where Norway’s prime meridian was established in 1779 is unfortunately not marked.

  THE GREAT SURVEYS

  Kongsvinger Fortress, Norway

  60° 11′ 57″ N

  12° 00′ 40″ E

  The story of the modern mapping of Norway starts with two lieutenants standing on two separate hills to the north of Kongsvinger and sending smoke signals to one another. The year is 1779–one of the lieutenants stands at Brattberget, the other at Esperberget, and using fire and gunpowder they attempt to find out the distance between the two hills. The aim is to measure a baseline they can use in the work to map this strategically important area close to the Swedish b
order, but the method encounters problems due to all the burning of foliage and waste also being carried out in the area.

  So the lieutenants try again–and again. Both have a pendulum clock set as accurately as possible in accordance with the Sun’s movements. One of the lieutenants fires off a shot when his clock shows the time at which the Sun is at its highest at his location, the other when his clock shows the same slightly later, and the time difference between the two clocks–around one minute and seventeen seconds–provides a rough distance between the two hilltops.

  The lieutenants combine the figures from the four days on which they have achieved the best measurements with astronomical observations, and the results provide a distance of 62,322 Danish feet, or 19,555 modern metres, between the two hills. The margin of error, however, is around 100 metres. In February of the following year, they therefore take along four pine rods, each measuring four metres in length, to take a control measurement on the flattest surface that exists in Norway’s bumpy landscape–a frozen body of water. They make their way to Storsjøen lake, a few miles north-west of Kongsvinger, and use the rods to measure yet another baseline. They then connect this to the first using surveying instruments. Finally, they have calculated a distance between Brattberget and Esperberget that they are satisfied with: 62,139 feet. A significant distance in Norway has been measured using scientific methods for the very first time. The modern mapping of the country had begun.

  THE SURVEY | The initiative to survey the country had been taken seven years earlier, when King Gustav III of Sweden staged a coup d’état to obtain greater power. Denmark-Norway reacted by preparing for a possible attack. Head of the Danish-Norwegian Engineer Corps, General Heinrich Wilhelm von Huth, reacted by strengthening Denmark-Norway’s border defences. Fortresses were reinforced, the artillery was improved and, on 14 December 1773, the country’s first surveying institution was founded: Norges Grændsers Opmaaling (the Border Survey of Norway). The organisation’s first priority was to create military maps of the areas where the war with Sweden usually played out–along the stretch of the country between Halden and Trondheim. Von Huth wrote: ‘These maps will now mainly represent the terrain that lies between Glomma and the border. The work has been started at Ingedahlen, and aims to continue on to Stene bastion at Trondheim.’

  By ‘Ingedahlen’, von Huth probably meant the contentious border area of Enningdalen south-east of Halden–as a German, von Huth was not always completely reliable when it came to recounting Norwegian place names.

  The Border Survey of Norway was allocated premises in the same building as Den frie mathematiske Skole (the Free Mathematical School), and the new institution’s first task was to gather all available information from previous maps–including maps of bailiwicks, nautical charts, Wangensteen and von Langen’s maps, and whatever else they could find–to put together a single, large map, measuring around three metres wide and four metres high in two parts, and thereby establish what was already known. The surveyors then went out into the terrain to check the accuracy of the map, noting down discrepancies where the old maps were incorrect, and started to draw new maps.

  These new maps were mostly produced in a square-mile format, each covering 1x1 Norwegian mile. In 1773, a Norwegian mile was not the same as it is today, but 18,000 alen, equivalent to 11.295 kilometres. Details such as churches and parishes were added to the maps, along with bailiwicks, roads, rivers, farms, smallholdings and military depots. The military need for information about the negotiability of roads and quartering opportunities for the troops along the way were the most important considerations.

  The Border Survey of Norway was granted a budget of 1,500 riksdaler per year–a modest sum that enabled no more than two to four cartographers to be sent away on assignments lasting six months at a time. The cartographers started in the southernmost regions of the county of Østfold, at Halden and Enningdalen, and worked their way north between the Oslofjord and the border with Sweden. The most common method of surveying used in Norway at this time involved the use of an instrument known as a plane table–a square plate mounted on a tripod. The drawing paper was attached to this plate, usually using clips, along with a ruler and telescopic sight. Using the sight, the surveyors would locate a point with a known position, such as a church spire or a mountain, and then start to enter details on the map using this as a starting point.

  But the surveyors had failed to establish a common starting point–a prime meridian–before beginning their work, and minor errors could therefore be magnified from one map to the next. Sometimes, as much as two or three kilometres might be transferred from one map to another, and by the year 1777 the surveyors had moved so far off course that something would have to be done. One of the professors at the Free Mathematical School recommended that the officers be trained in newer, more accurate surveying methods, but due to his tight budget von Huth felt unable to offer such training to his staff–despite admitting that it was highly desirable.

  As the cartographers moved north into increasingly difficult, wooded regions and less populated areas, the disadvantages of using the cheapest method became more and more apparent–the cartographers were forced to both perform measurements and redraw their maps again and again. At the same time, the actions of the king of Sweden seemed to indicate that the threat of war was no longer imminent. In 1778, General von Huth contacted Thomas Bugge in Copenhagen to request a modern survey plan.

  DENMARK | Thomas Bugge was a professor of astronomy and director of the observatory in Copenhagen’s Rundetaarn, or Round Tower. In the summer of 1763, at the age of twenty-three, he had been one of the first two surveyors to be sent out into the field after the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters passed a resolution to survey Denmark. Royal decree prohibited any obstruction of the land surveyors’ work, or the removal of any of the markers they established. Statutory provisions also stated that from 1 May until the end of September, ‘or longer if weather conditions so permit’, the surveyors had the right to requisition ‘four to six farmers and farmhands, of which the latter must not be too old, but rather young boys, although not below the age of sixteen years; among these shall be an aging person who is familiar with the surrounding places, including the borders between counties, rural municipalities and parishes, etc’.

  But despite this, the surveyors still encountered problems. One complained about acts of theft and ‘the mean farmers’ reluctance and repentance in all they are asked to do […] several such uncomfortable circumstances have, if not confused me, then at least prevented activities from moving forward, and in addition to this: that, for the most part, the surveying situation has been extremely complex and arduous.’

  The Danish mapping project was extensive, thorough and ambitious, and meant that tiny Denmark soon became one of the leading European nations within land surveying. The island of Zealand was divided into fifteen principal lines from north to south, with a distance of 10,000 alen between them. This was achieved by stretching out a fifty-foot surveyor’s chain over and over again; or, to put it another way: the surveyors walked up and down the length of Zealand fifteen times, measuring as they went. They then did the same from east to west. Using the grid they had created in this way, they were able to accurately locate villages, castles, country estates, churches, individual farms and houses, as well as all the lakes, marshes, forests, rivers and country roads within the area, in addition to the borders of rural municipalities and counties.

  A trigonometric map of Zealand, Denmark, by Thomas Bugge from 1779. All the triangles the surveyors have measured and used to map the island are clearly shown. The ‘Kiöbenhavns Observatorii Meridian’, one from north to south and another from east to west, cross at the observatory in the Round Tower in central Copenhagen.

  In the autumn of 1778, General von Huth sent two lieutenants, Johan Jacob Rick and Ditlev Wibe, to Thomas Bugge in Copenhagen, where they would learn about the modern mapping method Denmark had been one of the first countries in Europe to ado
pt–trigonometric triangulation.

  TRIANGULATION | The ancient Egyptians and Sumerians had used triangulation many years earlier when measuring their lands and drawing maps. But the problem with the old method of triangulation was its unsuitability for surveying larger areas–as the mapping of the border regions had shown. Dutch mathematician Gemma Frisius founded the modern method of triangulation when, in a small book published in 1553, he explained how a network of triangles enables us to measure areas of any size. Frisius took his instruments up to the top of Antwerp’s high church tower, and from there was able to see the towers in the neighbouring cities of Bergen op Zoom, Brussels, Ghent, Leuven, Lier and Mechelen, which he entered on a geometric map. It was then possible, he wrote, to observe the same cities from a tower in Brussels and, knowing the distance from Antwerp to Brussels, calculate the distances between the other towers. In order to prevent inaccuracies, Frisius recommended that the selected control points, such as the towers in Antwerp and Belgium, first be located using astronomical calculations.