… maps, by Harold Fisk

Meander map of the Mississippi, 1944, by Harold Fisk, cartographer and geologist, image via The Public Domain Review

This map is one of a series made to highlight the changes in the flood plain of the Mississippi River. The maps were drawn using information from 1944 and old records from 1765, 1820 and 1880.

All of these alterations, both human and nonhuman, can be seen in Fisk’s wonderfully detailed, wonderfully vibrant maps — further evidence that the Mississippi, as Mark Twain put it, is not at all “a commonplace river, but on the contrary is in all ways remarkable”.