mapping barsoom

8/15/2019 Mapping Barsoom

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Official Edgar Rice Burroughs Tribute and Weekly Webzine Site

Since 1996 ~ Over 5,000 Webpages in Archive

Volume 1370

MAPPING BARSOOM,

Can it be done?by

Rick Johnson

Ever since Burroughs wrote the first Mars story, people have been attempting to map the Redplanet, each achieving various degrees of success but none accurate enough for the rest of us tosay, "well, I may as well burn my attempt, this one works!"

Why is this?

We make suppositions that are completely fictitious and counterproductive sohere are the reasons why everyone fails and how we can use these to ouradvantage.

FIRST, Barsoom is NOT Mars!

SECOND, Maps Lie!

THIRD, People are NOT Cartographers!

Once we compensate for these problems, most of the obstacles facing a re-
http://www.erbzine.com/mag13/1370.htmlhttp://www.erbzine.com/mag13/1370.html


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mapping of Barsoom fade away.

1: BARSOOM IS NOT MARS!

Let us begin here.

Barsoom is a world about 4,222 miles (6,787 km) in diameter and 13,257miles (21, 311 km) in circumference with an atmosphere breathable by anyearth person without difficulty or trouble. We know the size becauseBurroughs received these measurements from John Carter. We know the airpressure and composition because both John Carter and Ulyssus Paxton weretransported from Earth (14.5 pounds per square inch air pressure with a 75%Nitrogen and 25% Oxygen content) to Barsoom and could not only breathe

easily upon arrival but could do so after considerable and immediate exercise.Therefore, the atmospheric pressure and composition was similar to that ofEarth near 2000 feet altitude in the case of John Carter (the SuperstitionMountains where John Carter is presumed to be gold hunting starts at about2400').

Mars, however, has an atmospheric pressure of .15 psi (about 1/100th ofEarth) with a composition of mainly Carbon Dioxide (CO2). Appearing theresuddenly would suck your lungs from your chest almost instantly. If somehowyou could concentrate the air into something equal to near Earth pressure,you would still die within minutes from Carbon Dioxide poisoning which causes

the blood to become alkaline. There simply isn't enough free oxygen on Marsto keep a person alive.

To understand this, Go from Miami, Florida (at sea level @ 14.5 psi) to DenverColorado (a mile high @ 12.5 psi) and see how easily you can breathe. (note:Mt Everest at 29,028 feet or almost 5 miles has an air pressure of 4.4 psiwhich is almost 400 times the thickness of the air at the surface of Mars) Tryto do your morning three mile run the day after you arrive and see how faryou get. When the Olympics are situated in Mexico City or Denver, athletesarrive at least a month ahead to get used to the thin air, to build their redcount and to adapt to the lesser air pressure before they even attempt serious

exercise. Yet, Earthmen can breathe and exercise easily on Barsoom from theirfirst moment of arrival with no difficulty. Neither do the local inhabitants showno sign of overly developed rib cages to house expanded lungs. This impliesthat despite claims to the rarity of the Barsoomian atmosphere, so long as youremain under a mile of the surface, there is little difference between Earth andBarsoom as to air composition or pressure.


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The temperature of Barsoom ranges from hot during the day to cold at night.This is comfortable enough so that both John Carter in Helium and UlyssusPaxton in Toonol, both at about 30 degrees north and south respectively, canbe comfortable during the day in what amounts to little more than a g-string

and a few belts to hold weapons (note that Arizona where John Carter foundhis gold is at about 33 degrees north which is similar to Helium at 30 Degreessouth and both are desert). At night, they are cold but not fatally so evenwhen covered with but a few layers of silk and fur blankets. Even in the SouthPolar region, an area expected to be frozen, John Carter makes little to nochange in his accustomed costume which implies a relatively constantdaytime temperature across the planet changing only when the sun sets.

Mars, however, has a surface temperature well below freezing. At 30 degreesnorth (the same latitude of both the Toonolian Marsh and city of Helium) theViking Lander measured at mid-June a nighttime temperature of -89 degrees C

(-128 F) and a daytime temperature of -25 degrees C (-12 F). This is so coldthat the polar icecaps at -143 degrees C (-225 F) are not water but frozen CO2or dry ice. Any person would freeze solid within minutes to become solid icewithin an hour. At the Poles, this would happen within seconds.

Barsoom is covered with reddish moss with an occasional forest, swamp andgrove of various plants. The Toonolian Marsh, the Great Helium Forest, theKoalian Forest, the Forest of Lost Souls and the list goes on. Vegetationabounds in sufficient amounts to feed thoats and zitidars and with enough freewater to support these forests and swamps and enough subsurface water to

support the moss which covers the sea beds.

Mars is rock! Red rock! Lots of rocks and not one plant in sight and ahumidity of Zero! No photos of packs of calots stalking thoat herds across thecountryside. No mantilla groves or man-flowers. Nothing!

It's obvious, painfully so, that what we are seeing is not what Burroughs isdescribing. Arguments here range from Barsoom exists in a parallel universeto Barsoom is ancient history millions of years gone.

Yet, when Dejah Thoris describes Jasoom to John Carter, he immediatelyrecognizes the planet of his origin. She is even familiar with the history of theplanet, a history that matches the memories of John Carter. When UlyssusPaxton observes Jasoom through a Barsoomian telescope, he not only sees hisown Earth, but does so in his own time, observing the war that caused hisEarthly death. What we see when we stare with telescopes may be similar toBarsoom but what we see when we visit is not. And neither of these resemble


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what both Carter and Paxton experience in person. And somehow, what theysee when they observe Earth is accurate.

What goes?

Simple. Our observations are wrong!

2.

Remember when Science insisted that the Earth was flat? Everything weknew about science and physics proved that the Earth was flat! Today youcan even find scientists who still insist that it remains flat and who havesuccessfully forced certain American schools to teach this belief! Whenpeople experienced the curvature of the Earth by simply sailing a few miles tosea, they KNEW that science was wrong! Yet, scientists insisted that whatthese sailors had experienced was a mass hallucination simply becausescience KNEW that the Earth was flat and so the experiences of the sailorsmust be wrong!

Then science finally changed, accepted the experiences of those who knewand said the Earth was round but the universe was flat! Did they learn theirlesson? No!

Some scientists have proven that the Earth was formed 3.5 billion years agoyet other scientists can just as easily prove that the earth was created in 3007b.c.e. Historical and geologic records prove the validity of the former yet thelatter scientists insist that these historical records are a lie and havesucceeded in getting their beliefs taught in American schools. Once again,science disagreed with the experiences or those who were there and scienceis right?

Explorers had told Naturalists for years about 'hairy men' in the wilds of Africato be told that this was impossible.. until the Mountain Gorilla wasdiscovered. Paleontologists knew for certainty that certain fish had beenextinct for millions of years.. until the Coelocanth was discovered, still alive.And despite this list which is greater than I wish to cover, science still refusesto consider even the possibility that Bigfoot or the Sirrush or the Don orChupacabra, Megalodon, Mangani or another endless list of cryptics may exist(I myself have discovered two cryptics in the jungles of Okinawa, a 5"diplovertebron salamander and a 3' red centipede, both of which biologistshave insisted were fakes).


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The arrogance of the scientists is as endless as is the mistakes that they haveand are and will continue to make.

I have a rule about this. Whenever someone tells me one thing and I

experience another, I ask, "Were you there?" The scientists who insisted thatthe Mountain Gorilla was a fraud never spent one moment to think, "Hey! Thisguy saw something, let's reserve judgment, follow him back and see what itwas." The same goes for astrophysicists and astronomers who KNOW thatMars is lifeless despite the visits of at least a dozen people who went thereand saw the contradiction. But I digress, rather than list the endless foibles ofscience from the geocentric universe to the impossibility of apes tocommunicate with people (which many still insist despite their experienceswith Koko) to the impossibility of man traveling at 60 miles per hour to. youget the idea. Science is always making statements, proving the validity oftheir statements with reams of paper and destroying the reputations of those

who experienced something else simply because the scientists KNEW thatthey were right and don't confuse them with the truth.

But again I digress. This paper is about Barsoom. Specifically, how to mapthe Red Planet by combining both the personal experiences of the explorerswith the observations of the astronomers.

So, when science tells me that Mars is uninhabitable yet both John Carter andUlyssus Paxton have been there and survived, then I must say that NASAneeds to get their heads out of their moniter and look at the experiences ofthe explorers and not their own arithmetic numbers. Numbers can prove

anything even if you are using them to prove a lie! The more exact a scientisttells me he is, the more I know he is wrong. Like an accountant seeking toprove a balanced budget or a creationist seeking to prove that their godcreated everything in 3007 b.c.e., something has to give and I'll side withthose with personal experience over someone who never left a keyboardevery time.

Therefore, the Mars described by NASA is not the Barsoom of ERB! They arethe same planet so the observations of science must be incorrect becausethey counter the experiences of the explorers who were there.

Perhaps the math is wrong. After all, Einstein could not balance his owncheckbook nor was he able to learn how to tie his shoelaces so I tend tosuspect any math described by this man.

Perhaps the observations are wrong. Maybe there is dust in the telescopes orthe lenses have warped, maybe the instruments are measuring the wrongthing or landed in the one place that is similar to Antartica in the Winter orDeath Valley in the Summer, maybe the scientists are misinterpreting the


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data. I am not a scientists but I have seen so many scientists insist that theywere right and the observations of those who were there were wrong, thenmost of them had to eat crow.

So let us work from the belief that IF John Carter and Ulyssus Paxton managedto visit and survive on Barsoom, then the planet is habitable and theobservations we have, including the temperature, air pressure andcomposition and even the photos the astronomers took are inaccurate. Whythis is I will let a future scientist determine as modern scientists laugh at thesuppositions of their centuries old brethren, only to be laughed at themselvesas time passes.

3.

Since 1912 when Burroughs published the journal of Carter's experiencesupon Barsoom, people have tried with little success to compare hisdescriptions to the Red planet and create a workable map of Barsoom. Inmost cases, these have failed. Zodanga is described to be in two differentplaces. NASA photos and astronomical observations place hills in areas thatare described by Carter as flatlands. If you map the directions given byCarter, you end up someplace different from where he was. Even looking atthe two maps drawn by Burroughs which he based on the descriptions of JohnCarter don't match.

Why? Because,

MAPS LIE!

Before we go into this, we must first understand what a map is.

A map is an attempt to describe a three-dimensional object on a two-dimensional space. We are trying to put a round apple onto a flat piece ofpaper and it simply cannot be done. For thousands of years people have triedto do this and not one of them has succeeded. Some maps are more accuratethan others in some areas but none are correct. Only when you create athree-dimensional sphere can you accurately map the planet.

Take a soccer ball which is essentially a duo-decahedron. That means youtake twelve pentagons (a five-sided shape) and sew them together to form asort of sphere. Then you inflate the object to deform the pentagons into acurve and you have a ball. Look at this ball and as you turn it, you see everypentagon as perfect. Now set it on the table and take a photograph of the


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ball. Lay some tracing paper over the photo and trace the lines of eachpentagon not as you know them to be but as the camera shows. Look at thetracing and suddenly, those pentagons that you know are perfect are perfectONLY in the one facing the camera. The further you get to the edge, the more

distorted they become. It is as of they were pushed into a narrow shape thatno longer resembles the original, yet you know they are perfect. What youhave tried to do is map a three-dimensional object in two-dimensions and youfailed.

Doing the same thing with a globe results in a similar problem. Canada andSiberia and Greenland are shown as being unbelievable huge on paper butwhen you look at a globe, they are much smaller.

But, there is hope! Cartographers have spent a thousand years to develop anumber of means to do this and although none are completely accurate, each

has its uses.

To understand this next part, instead of showing pictures and maps, I will askyou to collect a book atlas and a cheap globe and follow along as we explorethe Earth. It doesn't matter if the atlas and globe are out-of-date. Becausepolitical boundaries change so fast you can easily buy both globe and atlas atany thrift store for a dollar or two each. The globe you can paint over laterand use to create your own map of Barsoom once you understand theprinciples. But possession of both of these as we talk will be invaluable.

When creating a paper map of a sphere, the only accurate map is a Globe!

Globes are three-dimensions and so accurately portray a three-dimensionalplanet. But, a globe large enough to be useful would be too large to use. Ionce saw in Maine the world's largest globe which towered three stories andstill, when I found Arizona on it, the scale was to small to use. Somehow weneed to make the information on a globe workable on a desk-sized paperformat and there are a number of ways to do this.

First is the Globe which is accurate but impractical.

Second is the CylinderProjection. This takes the

sphere and stretches it to arectangle. This is the methodpreferred by almost everyone butit has a big problem. Blow up aballoon then draw the earth onthat balloon as shown on aglobe. Then release the air, cutthe balloon from top to bottom


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and stretch it to cover a piece of paper. See how the top of the globe distortsand stretches? Look at the shapes of Greenland, Europe and Canada at thetop of this map and compare it to the Azimuthal map below.

Any Cylindrical Projection is accurate ONLY at the exact center of the map andalong a line exactly east-west and north-south from that center point, heremarked in red. The farther you get from these two lines, the more distortionyou get. The four corners of that Cylindrical map are so distorted as to betotally useless. Consider that when you do this to a globe, the central east-west line in the Equator which is some 26,000 miles from edge to edge of yourmap. The top and bottom edge of the map are the same distance on paperbut in reality, they are the poles and so are a point. This is why Canada,Siberia and Greenland look so huge. They aren't! But the CylindricalProjection distorts them to look that way. Compare the top of any world mapfrom your atlas to the same thing on your globe. Almost all of us have tried

to use this method for our Maps of Barsoom when we seek to compare hisnotes from John Carter to a map of Mars. We all fail because we forgot aboutthe distortion at the poles and the four corners of these maps.

Choose a point such as Ecuador on the flat map and Ecuador on the globe.See how they match. Look north of Ecuador on both and the farther you getfrom that country, the less accurate the map becomes.

Now when you are making a map of your city, then a Cylindrical Projectionworks well because for such a small area, we can assume the world to be flat.But for anything larger, the map becomes more and more inaccurate.

But almost every map of any place, Earth or Barsoom, is based on thisinaccurate mapping system. We take a location on a flat Cylindrical map andmeasure a distance and direction and cannot help but be wrong. Therefore,believe any flat map of Barsoom to be inaccurate!

To date the most accurate methoddeveloped is the Sinusoidal map whichresembles a peeled orange laid flat. Takeyour globe and cut it into sections, eachcut following a line of longitude from the

north pole to the south pole. If you cutevery ten degrees, you will have thirty-sixof these pieces, each pointed at the ends

and bulging in the middle as a cat's eye. If you cut every 110 degrees, youwill have the illustrated 3-section Sinusoidal map. Now lay these on yourpaper in proper order and you will have an accurate map of the Earth but theywill only touch at the equator. The closer you get to the poles, the moreempty space you have. Although the sections are still curved, they are flatter


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than a sphere.

It is thus impossible to accurately show the entire planet on one flat map.

What we can do is to make fairly accurate flat maps of smaller parts of theplanet. To us a basketball is a sphere but to an ant it is flat. To us the earth isflat but to an astronaut it is a sphere. The idea is to use a scale small enoughto effectively ignore the curvature of the Earth.

One way to do this is the Conic Projection. Since all longitudes merge to apoint at the poles and all latitudes are parallel, the Conic Projection warpsboth to give a false, but still more accurate picture of the area.

The final method is the AzimuthalProjection. Here we take a photo of the

Earth from various viewpoints and markthe points on this map. This is the mostaccurate way of converting a globe to amap but is accurate ONLY for the pointexactly in the center of the map. Thecloser you get to the edges, the more

inaccurate the map becomes. Burroughs used this method for his own map ofBarsoom.

So the rules here are:


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It is impossible to make a flat map of any planet that is completely accurate.

Any map you make will be accurate only at the center and the further you get from that

center, the less accurate the map becomes.

So you have one choice: Make a globe that gives the general information then make a series offlat maps to give details of much smaller areas. A flat map of the Toonolian Marsh would bemostly accurate as would a flat map of Omean or Helium but not of the entire hemisphere.

4.

No matter how you read the journals of John Carter or the reworkings ofBurroughs, you cannot escape the one fact of life.MAPS LIE!

There are a lot of reasons for this that range form copyright to security to lackof space but no map can be believed completely.

1) The former Soviet Union deliberately made maps that were wrong, placingbridges, roads and even cities in places miles from their actual locations, inventingmilitary targets that did not exist. Their thought was that if you lived in Moscow,you knew where that bridge was and could find it but an ICBM crossing 10,000miles would land where the US thought that bridge was according to a map. If welooked at a map and thought a major military base was in Siberia, we'd sacrificeordinance, manpower and time leveling that empty tundra when the real basewould be hundreds of miles away and safe. Even today you must have a permit tocarry a cell-phone and GPS in Russia and anyone carrying a camera, cell-phone

and GPS in America is looking to be arrested by Homeland Security as a possibleterrorist. It's happened to Geocachers because the police and the government ofmany nations are afraid that a possible enemy will get hold of an accurate mapand use it in a military manner!

2) If you want to start a company that makes and sells maps, whyspend all that money sending people out to draw the maps andrenting satellite time or aircraft when you can simply visit thelibrary, check out Rand-McNally and copy their map for a fewcents? You can redraw the thing and sell it cheaper because yousaved all that research. So, most map-makers put flaws into their

maps. They create streets and cities and places that don't exist.Thus, they can drag the competition into court and say, "See,Joeblow Street doesn't really exist. We drew it on our maps as acopyright proof because anyone who went there would know thereis no Joeblow St so since Gerber Maps shows Joeblow St, theyobviously photocopied our maps and are selling our hard work!"

3) There is only a limited space on a map. You simply cannot put


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everything you want on a map that someone is trying to readwhile driving down a residential street. So you aim your map tothe audience you are trying to attract and leave out items thatwon't fit. For the guy who is traveling from LA to Chicago, he

doesn't care about every important historical marker, he onlywants to know the freeways, toll-roads and where to get ahamburger. So you make a map for him and the fact that the mapignores almost every small town off the freeway is acceptable tohim.

But if you are a tourist, you don't care much about freeways, you want to know how to get toMontezuma Well or if Walnut Creek has cliff dwellings? If you are a delivery man, your map willshow every street in town and which are one-way but ignore historical sites.

And a map of Arizona won't have room for even the major streets in the cities

you pass. So you put the most important information on the map according tothe needs and desires of the consumer and the room you have. My map ofTucson won't list Tohono Chul Park but it will list the major intersections andstreets. The Tucson Tourist Bureau will give me a map that shows thatintersection and the park and where to park your car but it won't show thepark itself. The Park gift shop will give me a map that ignores the city butgives you the walking paths through the park and notes on which areas havethe best flowers to see. Information on any map is dependant on the amountof room you have and the interest of the consumer.

5.

PEOPLE ARE NOT CARTOGRAPHERS!Maps were made by people who did the best they could. They started at pointA, paced off the distance to point B, turned x degrees and passed off to pointC and so on, all the while taking notes. No matter how careful they were,even professional surveyors were often wrong. How do we know this?Because when aircraft and cameras were invented and satellite photographywas perfected, we took a picture from the air or space then laid that photoover the map and 'lo!' the map was wrong. A mistake of an inch over a mile

or a single degree adds up and it took a photo from a distance to correct this.We did the best we could and still got it wrong and if there was even thesmallest warp in the camera lens, the photo was wrong too!When you are exploring a region, you don't have time to roll out a 500' steeltape with compass. Even if you use a GPS and laptop, you won't have time todo a good map. This is especially true when you are running for your life."Well, we ran about south for maybe a half hour, but it seemed like a day, andthen we turned to our right and saw in the distance a big tree! That's where


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we buried poor Phil!" Try to find that tree now! This is why the legendaryPirate Maps leading to buried treasure don't work.For most people 'south' means anything from 320 degrees to 40 degrees.Spread your fingers and point your index finger north according to thecompass. Unless you are a professional cartographer, those two fingers, your

first and your ring will mean 'north' even though one points NNE and the otherNNW.Here is a simple way to understand this. I live in Tucson. My oldest daughterlives in Phoenix. I tell people she lives 125 miles north of me. And that's allthat you care to know.BUT!Is Phoenix really 125 miles from Tucson? Depends! Do we measure from citylimits to city limits or from center of population to center of population? Boththese will change as people move around and the city incorporates moreland. Or from Downtown to downtown or from main post office to main postoffice? Each of these will give a measurement that varies by as much as 50

miles either way so Phoenix can be anywhere from 100 miles to 200 milesfrom Tucson depending on the places from which you or I will measure.And is it really north? According to my map, Phoenix is about 40 degrees westof North which actually makes it WNW. More north than west but we here inTucson still say that Phoenix is 'north' of Tucson.And does my daughter really live in Phoenix? Phoenix is either a specific cityas in the City of Phoenix or it is a group of separate cities that all are so closetogether that you have to look at the name on the police car following you toknow where you really are. There is Goodyear on the west and 25 miles east(depending on how you measure) is Apache Junction. Between the two are:Mesa, Chandler, Peoria, Glendale, Sun City, Scottsdale and a half dozen other

cities that share the Valley of the Sun which really isn't a valley at all but abunch of mountain ranges that are all over the place with a mostly flat areabetween them all.And to get there, I tell people, "go west to I-10 then north," when I reallymean, "take any road that goes in a westerly direction until you find I-10 thenfollow it in a general NW direction but winding around mountains and desertuntil you come across a large city that goes on for another hour of freewaydriving."Even trained people make mistakes and suffer accidents. I recall one time weare in the field and I noticed that we appeared to be going in circles. So Iasked the Lt. "What's going on?" He got angry and said "We're lost!" Now this

was a man who had gone to a bunch of military schools that trained him toNOT get lost in the desert.So I asked, "Why not ask those people for directions. Which elicited the reply,"They are armed with better weapons than we have and they don't likeAmerican soldiers. Pretend you don't see them and hope they do the same.""Well, why not look at your compass and map?" I asked and he replied,"Because I lost the map a while ago and I left my compass at camp."Finally I offered, "Here, borrow my compass and binoculars then." I always


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carry back-ups for this reason.Eventually we got back to camp safe, tired and hungry but I had and still haveno idea of where we were. But I learned some good lessons; Don't trustanother person who thinks that they know where they are, don't rely ofelectronics such as a GPS, learn non-technical methods of finding your way

around and carry your own maps, compass and survival gear.

6.

So how does this help us to understand Barsoom?Well, the first thing is to remember that John Carter never gave Burroughs amap. He gave descriptions. And Carter or Paxton or Hadron were neithergeographers nor cartographers. They were soldiers trying to do a job whichdid not include making accurate maps of the planet. So when Ulyssus Paxtonsaid that Amhor lies "about 700 miles north of Gooli," he could have meant abroad area anywhere from 600 to 800 miles deep with a compass headingbetween NNW to NNE. That covers between 60,000 to 180,000 square milesof area or about the size of Wisconsin or larger than England and Walescombined (on the conservative side) and possibly as large as Sweden andlarger than Morocco or Spain. This gives us a very large area in which tosearch.

Thus, rule #1 is that unless an exact latitudeand longitude is given, be very broad in yourlocation of the city. Incidently, we in Tucsonrefer to Phoenix as being 'north' but Globe asbeing 'northeast' even though I have family inboth cities. Check this map for their reallocations.

Second, we must accept that with any flat map,distances are accurate ONLY within a few milesof the origin. The further you go, the moredeviation we have. I took a flat CylinderProjection Map of Europe made by a famousmap-making company. I then measured thedistance and direction from Rome (whichhappened to be in the center of my map) toMoscow (which happened to be near the upperright-hand corner of my map. I converted thatmap distance (6 inches) to miles (1500 miles)according to their scale and took that same

measurement to my world globe. I measured 1500 miles on the globe scaleand used a rule to go 1500 miles exactly NE from Rome. I ended up


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someplace past Kirov. Kirov is, according to my flat map, about 500 milesWNW of Moscow.Between these two maps I was 500 miles and maybe ten degrees off. Had Iprogrammed my Destination Compass according to my flat map, I could easilyarrive in Aaanthor facing a hoard of Torquas Green men when I was aiming for

Lothar.Rule #2 is that the farther your directions are, the less accurate theybecome.And when we convert from one distance to another, we run into math errors.One kilometer equals .62 miles and one mile equals 1.6 miles. So if we take1000 km and convert to Miles, we get 620 miles. But if we convert 620 milesto kilometers, we get 992 kilometers. This is a difference of eight miles for noother reason than the number of decimal places we were willing to use whenwe mentally made the conversion.Actually one mile equals 1.609 kilometers but how many of us are going touse more than one decimal point when in casual conversation? I tell people I

made $26,000 last year but according to my W-2 I actually made $26,357.31.I tell people that Phoenix is 125 miles north of Tucson but I am only on theFreeway for 104 miles plus six miles of in-town driving in Tucson and . you getthe idea.Rule #3 is that in normal conversation, unless you MUST be exact, we roundup or we round down. Only a computer is exact. And when John Carterdescribes Thark as being a certain direction and distance from Helium, he isguestimating both and so is probably wrong.So, how does this help us to map Barsoom?

First of all we MUST use a globe. Not a flat map,but a real globe. Take that cheap globe I made you

buy and paint it pale red. Cover the Terrestrialimages until we have a blank reddish canvas uponwhich we will do our deeds. Light color is bestbecause you need to be able to see your markings.Next draw your lines of latitude and longitude onthe globe. Do this in 10 degree increments. Nowwe are making a broad assumption here when welist 360 degrees of longitude and 90 degreeslatitude north and 90degrees of latitude south.But, I will justify this suchly. John Carter gave so

many details about measurements such as a Haad was 1949.05 feet or a tal

was .88 second, that if Barsoom used 100 or 500 degrees on their globe, Ithink that this would have been worthy of mention. Therefore, since he wassilent on this even when giving the location of a city in degrees and minutes oflatitude and longitude, "Aaanthor lies at Latitude 50o South, Longitude 40oEast of Horz but the Red Man uses 500 degrees to their circle feeling that it iseasier to calculate." No, he said 50 S by 40 E and stopped as if to imply thatBarsoom used 360 degree circles too. Plus he states that a Karad is onedegree or 1/360 of a circle, so, we can safely assume that the cartography of


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Barsoom is the same as on Earth and use a 360o circle.Next, from the texts we know the exact locations of a few cities:

Exum is on the equator at 0 degrees E-W. Horz is on this same 0o E-W but of an

unknown Latitude and all east-west are measured from these two cities. So mark Exum

on the equator and that is now Zero degrees or our 'Greenwich'. Aaanthor is 50S x 40E

Dusar is 15N x 20E

Gathol has an area from 0N-10N x 10W-20W with a mountain near the center

Jahar is 30S x 35E

Thark covers 40S-80S x ?

Twin Cities of Helium are 30S by 1900 miles W of Zodanga

Obviously I haven't given you every location on the planet but this is a start. Feel free to re-readthe journals of Barsoom and keep a notebook by hand.

But for those cities that Burroughs described with latitude and longitude, mark

those on the globe. These are your starting points which are considered to beauthorative. Obviously according to Rule #2, Zodanga may be at 30S or itcould be as much as 10o north or south by as much as 100 miles closer orfarther away than stated. Because of this, give Zodanga a large circlecovering 20 degrees N-S by 50 degrees E-W but without a longitude forHelium, we are lost here. Also Carter was probably working from a flat mapand accepting the distortions as fact which throws off his descriptions ofdistance and direction.But wait! We have a Azimuthal map drawn by Burroughs himself. I don't havea date for this but it shows two locations for Zodanga and so was re-drawn asmore information was given. So we can look at this map and see that we have

the lat-lon for some three dozen cities. If we assume that this is authorative,then we now know the exact locations of these cities. Some of these include:

Exum at 0 x 0 'Greenwich'

Horz at 0 x 48N

Gathol at 15W x 5N

Greater Helium at 106E x 28S and more. I will refer you toAn Atlas of Fantasyby J. B.

Post -- pages 166 and 167 for a copy -- or check http://www.geocities.com/RikJohnson_erb/erbbmap.html for the original maps by the Master as an example.

Once we have marked these cities and locations, we can use these as the base for given

directions. When he then says that the city of **** lies 'x' miles from the city of *****, we canmake a rough guess as to the locations of that city. It won't be exact but it will get us within tendegrees or so. And when we hear a measurement in Haads, we must be careful when weconvert it to miles.

But, North or SouthWest directions and distances have more meaning on aglobe than on a map. Remember my Rome to Moscow blunder so tendegrees latitude (from the equator of Barsoom to your ten degree north line)


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is equal to 368.2 miles. Get a soft, flexible rule and mark this 10o on yourrule. This mark is equal to 368.2 miles or 997.4 haads. You can use this tomeasure your distances on the globe. You will notice that my rule had Haadson one side and miles on the other. It is flexible because I will need to curve itaround the globe and avoid mistakes.

Since we know from the Burroughs chart that Amhor is at 115W x 45N and weknow that Toonol is at 99W x 20N, we can mark these locations as accurate.Then when we read that Duhor is 5000 Haads from Amhor and 7800 Haadsfrom Toonol, we can take our rule upon which we have marked our distances,place the '0' point on Amhor and draw a circle then repeat at Toonol. Wherethese two circles intersect is the approximate location for Duhor (simpletrigonometry). And as we know that the Artolian hills are east of Duhor, wecan map those too.Add as many details as you can such as the boundaries for the Artolian Hillsand the Toonol Marsh. Estimate the Koal and Invak forests. Draw the known

valleys of Kamtol and Torquas. Here is where you must be careful butimaginative. Note that Carter describes the Valley Dor as 'near the southpole', not "at" the south pole. This is important because a) John Carter couldeasily see both moons from the Valley, b) the Valley was not covered in ice buthad temperate climate and c) John Carter wasn't freezing in Dor as he was inOkar. Therefore Dor must be in the southern hemisphere but not at the southpole, obviously in a remote location with few cities. We shall return to thislater.


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Now that we have marked as many locations as we can on our globe, we takegraph paper, mark our lat-lon numbers with a heavier line for the equator andExum and transfer our cities from the globe to the Cylindrical Projection mapthat we have just drawn. Why do we do it this way and not start with the flatmap? Because the flat map must be inaccurate by virtue of converting a

curved object on a flat paper.Once we transfer the cities from the globe to the map, we have an inaccurateflat map of the planet but we need this for the next step. This flat map isequal to any made by a dozen other researchers but probably a bit moreaccurate. Make a number of photocopies of this map to be used in Part II.But for now we have an extremely accurate globe and map of Barsoom. Feelfree to decorate it as you wish. Guess at the size and shape of the HeliumForest, add whatever details you find in the literature. And, if you wish, addadditional locations from the many fan-fictional stories written over the years.From this you can easily create smaller sectional maps of important areas. Amap showing only Helium and the surrounding area, a map of the Toonolian

Marshes. A map of the Forest of Lost Souls. Now you have a very accurateglobe of Barsoom, a very inaccurate flat map of Barsoom and a series of veryaccurate sectional maps of the various areas of Barsoom.

My collection will be posted at my ERB site and forwarded to Abner Perry'sexcellent Burroughs Map Site. Please feel free to send me your versions withyour own additions.In Part II we will cover how to combine this Barsoom Map to the NASA maps tofind a decent compromise.
http://www.geocities.com/RikJohnson_ERBhttp://erbatlas.virtualave.net/atlas1.shtmlhttp://www.geocities.com/RikJohnson_ERBhttp://erbatlas.virtualave.net/atlas1.shtml


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Rick Johnson, PO Box 40451, Tucson, Az. 85717http://www.geocities.com/DesertHengehttp://www.geocities.com/RikJohnson69

http://www.geocities.com/RikJohnson_ERBhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/TucsonPaganPaddlers/

The Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs

BILL HILLMANVisit our thousands of other sites at:

BILL & SUE-ON HILLMAN ECLECTIC STUDIOERB Text, ERB Images and Tarzan are Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.- All Rights Reserved.

All Original Work 1996-2005 by Bill Hillman and/or Contributing Authors/OwnersNo part of this web site may be reproduced without permission from the respective owners.

Official Edgar Rice Burroughs Tribute Site


Presents

Volume 1562

MAPPING BARSOOM II

CompromisesBy Rick Johnson

Unfortunately there is no perfect solution to this problem of matching Barsoom with Mars.

Here is an experiment. Take a blank piece of paper and draw a map of yourcountry freehand. Add in states, provinces, territories. Cities, rivers,everything you can remember. Be as accurate as is possible. If you are lucky,you may remember the latitude and longitude of your own city (Tucson is 32N x111W) which you can use as a starting point (note, I just checked Topo-Zone
http://www.geocities.com/DesertHengehttp://www.geocities.com/RikJohnson69http://www.geocities.com/RikJohnson_ERBhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/TucsonPaganPaddlers/mailto:[email protected]://home.westman.wave.ca/~hillmans/http://www.erbzine.com/mag15/1562.htmlhttp://www.geocities.com/DesertHengehttp://www.geocities.com/RikJohnson69http://www.geocities.com/RikJohnson_ERBhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/TucsonPaganPaddlers/mailto:[email protected]://home.westman.wave.ca/~hillmans/http://www.erbzine.com/mag15/1562.html


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and Tucson where I write this is really 32 15' 45"N, 110 57' 41"W but whocares to be that exact).

Note that all of these were drawn by adults, half by college graduates.

Assignment: Draw a map of the US from memory. Add as many details as you canremember such as rivers, mountains, cities, states, etc. The west coast should be


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near the left side of this sheet and the east coast should be near the right side sowe can overlay your drawing with a real map I have photocopied.

Create an accurate scale of distance and use this to help. (CanyonLake is 108 miles due north of Tucson. Phoenix is about 125 miles

a little west of North. Nevada, Missouri is 1200 miles NE.Albuquerque is 8 hours from Tucson east of Flagstaff. Flagstaff isthree hours north of Phoenix.) Be specific, accurate, careful.

NOW, open an atlas and place your hand-drawn map over a real map. How accurate were you?Probably not very. Yet, we persist in giving verbal directions to strangers and expect them to findthe place they seek?

If we cannot be accurate when we describe a place we know well, how can weexpect Edgar Rice Burroughs, a writer, to be accurate when describingBarsoom as described by John Carter, a soldier, when neither of them arecartographers? Even the maps drawn by John Carter were made while living onthe Hudson years after leaving the Red Planet.So, any attempt to create a workable map of Barsoom is doomed to failure. Allwe can do is find a happy compromise that most of us can use.Here is my method.I intend to create a number of maps here based on what we know form varioussources, then I shall combine these into a very few possible maps of the Red

Planet.

EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS


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This first map was created by looking at the original sketches of Barsoom asnoted by Edgar Rice Burroughs. As mentioned before, you can find these twoAzimuthal maps on page 166 & 167 ofAn Atlas of Fantasyby J. B. Post andscanned in athttp://www.geocities.com/RikJohnson_ERB/erbbmap.html
http://www.geocities.com/RikJohnson_ERB/erbbmap.htmlhttp://www.geocities.com/RikJohnson_ERB/erbbmap.html


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http://www.geocities.com/RikJohnson_ERB/erbbmap.html


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Once we have these maps, we transfer the cities and locations onto a flat map and add d etailsfrom the literature as described in part one of this series. The result is the following map:

Barsoom According to Edgar Rice Burroughs

As discussed in Part One, the more you diverge from the equator and 0 degrees Longitude, themore inaccurate the map becomes. Therefore we will use this map for reference only.

NASA

The next map was taken from the NASA-MOLA map.

It is here that we run into problems. Where do we put the equator? Where isHelium? Without any real reference points, we are simply lost for where do westart. I admit that this was my main problem until I read Den Valdrons articleon Mapping Barsoom and he made a number of points to locate Gathol,Artolian Hills, Toonolian Marshes and one excellent point that we cannot ignorewhich is useful for all other maps. The Valley Dor!
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At this time I will refer you to Den Valdrons paper on GEOGRAPHERS OF MARSI: MATCHING MARS AND BARSOOM A NEW APPROACH - ERBzine 1419 whichgoes into far more detail as to why we should accept this idea.

As for the Toonolian Marsh, Burroughs was specific as to the size of the Marsh

being 1800 miles east to west. Yet the Valles is far larger, perhaps a dozentimes as large which would seem to place it as something else.

But, The Valles is so large that were you to stand in the center, the cliff wallswould be over the horizon and some of the side channels would be larger thanthe Grand Canyon. And There is the key. For a people who were restricted toground travel until 900 years ago, the Valles would not be seen to exist as aseparate feature simply because it is far too large to encompass. But a smallerside channel could easily trap enough water to form a marsh so the Valles isn'tthe Marsh, a smaller side channel of the Valles is!

And the literature describes the western edge of the Marshes as hilly whichdescribes the mountainous regions that stretch to Tharsis.

Of course, this means that the Artolian Hills are far too close to the Toonolianmarshes but frankly, did Helium perform extensive aerial surveys andphotographic mapping missions when fliers were invented? If not, then Isubmit that there is a big difference between land and air distances.Remember the old adage where a man asks a farmer how far to the nearestService Station. The farmer says three miles as the crow flies to which theman asks, how far if the crow is walking and carrying a flat tire? According tomy GPS, I was only 300 feet from my goal last Sunday. But by the time I had

docked my kayak to a tree, climbed a cliff, hiked up a mountain and aroundcacti and brush and gullies, I had covered more than a mile on foot to reachthat 300 feet so to a man on thoat-back, the hilly distance between the ArtolianHills and the Toonolian marsh would seem much longer than to a man in a flier.

Gathol is an island in the middle of the Ocean and Elysium Mons fits thatdescription. So if we mark on the MOLA map all the major sites, we can havea warped map of Barsoom, remembering the distortion caused by any flatmap. The result is this:


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And once we redraw the MOLA map onto paper, this is the result:

As you can see, due to the limits of space I have avoided filling in every cityand site on a map this small but have marked the boundary of Throxeus whichmay be divided into Eastern Throxus and Western Throxus which along withKorus, Omean and Torquas, give us the five oceans of Barsoom. The exactlocations of the cities will be shown as we look at the MOLA map in more detail
http://www.erbzine.com/mag14/1419.htmlhttp://www.erbzine.com/mag14/1419.html


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seeking craters and hills that would be moisture traps and fit the generaldescriptions of the explorers of Barsoom.

LOWELL

Percival Lowell was a big influence upon Burroughs and his telescopic sightingsof Mars show something that the MOLA maps do not, canali. These canali arenot canals but lines and resemble the waterways described by John Carter.

Unfortunately, Carter describes only a very few waterways, and these leadingfrom Helium to the east and southeast as they cross Tharkan territory. The restare left undescribed. Yet, when we look at Lowell, we see somethinginteresting. Almost every waterway stretches from the north pole and few fromthe south. Why? The obvious answer is that the North Polar ice cap is stable in

size but the southern ice cap ranges in size from so large it almost seems tocover the southern hemisphere to so small you can almost jump across it.Now, logically, if you were building a waterway system to melt polar ice andsend it to the cities, taking the southern ice cap under these conditions wouldbe technically unfeasible. You'd need collection points every few kilometersacross almost half the planet. As the ice cap grew, many of these would bedamaged as the water froze and glaciers grew, forcing the locals to constantlyrebuild them.

But the stable northern ice cap would need only a few collection stations so itwould be easier to build and maintain a system from the north and dig awaterway to the south rather than have to constantly repair expensive meltingand collection stations.

So the Lowell map gives us waterways, collection stations and even more citiesin the form of spots along the canali.

But again, were to start?

Korus!

There is an area in the southern region that is almost devoid of canali and otherman-made features and if we place Korus there, we can move north to locatethe Toonoolian March, then northwest to find the Artolian Hills and the restfalls into place. Note that I am using north as a general direction and not as acompass point for the same reason we in Tucson refer to Phoenix as north.


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With Lowell, we have an advantage in that the spots at the intersections ofmany of the canali can easily be seen as cities surrounded by farm and grazinglands so we now know where to place the cities. The problem is to decidewhich spot is which city. I have concluded that Ptarth, a major city, would be alarger spot with more waterways than would be a smaller subject city. Theresult of this is as drawn becomes this:

Barsoom According to Percival Lowell
http://www.wanderer.org/references/lowell/Mars/map.htmlhttp://www.wanderer.org/references/lowell/Mars/map.html


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FINAL MAP

What we can now do is to compromise were we must, assume that many of thedirections given by John Carter were guestimates, assume that Lowell drew

what he thought he saw through a small telescope and assume that thecomputer program used by NASA to convert the MOLA data was equal toanything created by Microsoft and we see many glitches and wonder how wecan accept anything as true?

Well, we do the best we can. And for me, this means start with a large flat mapmarked in a grid pattern. Mine is 20 x 10 inches to give room for detail. Then Ipencil in the cities as shown on the Burroughs maps. Then the features shownby the MOLA map and the waterways shown in the Lowell Map. Then I movethings around until they seem to fit. The result is this:


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Now I must keep in mind many things:

1) Most waterways come from the North and major cities and empires would bealong these waterways. EXAMPLE: The Nile River has hundreds of cities andthousands of farms along the river banks but ten miles from the river, nothing!

2) Isolated cities would be in locations away from waterways. These would beoasis cities in a deep crater or isolated by mountains which could trap andcontain moisture.

3) Mountains and hills follow chains. This is because of plate tectonics wherethe Rocky-Andes chain is caused by the North and South American Plates


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smashing into the Pacific Plates and wrinkling. Mars has no modern platetectonics but did they have any in the past?

4) Forests and marshes would be in areas that trapped prevailing winds and socollected moisture. EXAMPLE: Hawaii is lush tropical garden on the NE shore

where the winds deposit water along the mountains but the SW shore is desertbecause by the time the winds reach that area, they have lost all theirmoisture. Arizona is a desert for the same reason, the western winds loose alltheir moisture to the Rockies and the Eastern winds drop their moisture alongTexas and New Mexico.

5) Most of the older Orovar Dead cities will be along the coastline of Throxus inthe north and the smaller seas of Korus and Torquas in the south. IsolatedDead cities elsewhere would be along dead rivers and lakes (craters) or theoccasional oasis.

6) There are four major Green Hoards that are known. Thark, Warhoon, Torquasand Thurid. All of these are in the southern deserts. If any others exist, theywould be very small, possibly cast-offs from the larger hoards and struggling tobarely survive against their more numerous Red and Green foes who wouldgladly exterminate them.

And we see a few things that cause us to ask questions:

1) Why are the Green Hoards all in the south? Because the waterways in thenorth are too heavily guarded and the Red Race forced the Green Race intoundesired areas. EXAMPLE: Look at how America treated the Indians for an

understanding of this.

2) There is a band of green that runs from the Artolian Hills SE to the ToonolianMarsh then south to the Koal Forest, east to the Manator and Invak forests. Isthis because of the wind patterns and mountains/craters acting as moisturecollectors pulling snow melt from the Artolians and moving that moisture alonga set flow pattern?

3) Cities like Helium that possess a forest but are isolated from this green bandare generally in valleys (craters) where the caldera rims act as moisturecollectors. Note that when a Barsoomian says valley he probably means

asteroid impact crater and when he says hills he probably means impactcrater ridge.

4) The waterways come from the stable Northern Icecap and tend to ignore thesouthern variable ice cap.

5) The River Iss runs from the Toonolian marsh where it takes the overflow andfollows a meandering line of craters and fissures through the Koal Forest


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generally south to empty into Korus. The Therns would repress constructionalong this sacred river but build way-houses and station boats for pilgrims soyou'd have a small shelter every days journey (about 20 miles or 30kilometers). Also, as the Iss flows, it would fill an occasional crater to formsmall lakes and marshes which may be inhabited.

Incidentally, it is the ISS that prevents the Toonol Marsh from becoming a lakeby draining the excess water. This is in the same way as the Congo River onEarth drains Africa and prevents Zaire from becoming an inland sea. Dam theCongo and in a couple centuries, central Africa would be a fresh-water lake.

When you look at this pattern, suddenly the novels make much more sense.Now the movements of John Carter and others have a reason. You can alsolook at the map and ask yourself, are there isolated cities in these areas?Major nations would exist along this band and Green Hoards would live in thesouthern deserts with occasional raids into the fertile north. Perhaps a smaller

hoard, driven from the south by the Warhoons or Tharks would take refuge inthe north and being so small, would be ignored as irrelevant or hunted down asa potential threat.

CONCLUSION

Remember the one thing I have been saying from the beginning, flat maps liedue to distortion so should be accepted as advisories only. Look at Greenlandon a flat world map then on a round globe to see this in action. Therefore,place your cities and features on the flat map but my final suggestion would beto make a globe of Barsoom and an atlas of smaller flat maps that are specificto certain areas such as one for the Toonol Marsh, another for the Torquas Hills,another for Helium and the surrounding areas.

. ZodangaHelium and Surrounding Area

From descriptions given by John Carter and DejahThoris

InA Princess of Mars

Waterways go from Helium to the SE. Onepasses 50 miles south of Thark, another passes200 miles north of Thark. There is anotherunnamed waterway north of Thark movingroughly east-west but probably to theunnamed city east of Helium.


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Some cities between Thark and Helium arefriendly to Helium, some unfriendly. Thischanges as Helium conquered and madealliances with its neighbours.

Roughly NW of Helium is a large unnamed citywith smaller cities between. We have little tono information on the north and south-westareas.

This is what I created from descriptions from the text and data from the MOLA maps. The Valley ofHelium is actually a large impact crater whose walls act as moisture collectors to water the HeliumForest. Thus the prevailing winds come from the SE. The Waterways are those described byDejah Thoris in Princess of Mars and so go SE to pass Thark and east to Zor. There are otherwaterways but this particular map is accurate to the Novels and not the Lowell Maps which showmore waterways to the Twin Cities.

And this is the Toonolian Marsh with possible nearby cities. It shows thewestern mountains that help contain the Marshes and protect Phundahl fromattack by air and ground.

When you are done with your own sectional maps, I would appreciate a copyfor my website and I am certain that many other sites would like to see thesesectional maps for as time goes, and we learn more of the Red Planet, ourknowledge becomes encyclopedic.


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Koar.

Next:Fan-Fic/Pastiche additions to the Barsoom Map.

See Mapping Barsoom I: Can It Be Done? at:ERBzine 1370

The ERBzine Guide to Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars is locatedat:

ERBzine 1351

BILL HILLMAN

Visit our thousands of other sites at:BILL & SUE-ON HILLMAN ECLECTIC STUDIO

ERB Text, ERB Images and Tarzan are Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.- All Rights Reserved.All Original Work 1996-2006 by Bill Hillman and/or Contributing Authors/Owners

No part of this web site may be reproduced without permission from the respective owners.

Official Edgar Rice Burroughs Tribute Site


Presents

Volume 1565

.

MAPPING BARSOOM III


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The PastBy Rick Johnson

Since modern geography is based on the geology of the past, mapping Barsoom as it was a half-million years ago when the seas covered the world is easier than one would think. We actuallyhave a number of maps that help, the one by Burroughs as described by John Carter, the onedrawn by Percivel Lowell and the MOLA map by NASA. It is how we compare these that makes thedifference.

Consider a city like Tucson, Arizona. It's in the middle of the desert with drywashes, mountains, cacti and no water to be found within a hundred miles. Sowhy would anyone build here? How could you survive for water, a source ofconstant water, is THE most important requirement for a city.

Well, the Santa Cruz River wasn't always a dry wash. Just like the Salt River,home of the Salt River Apaches, The Santa Cruz ran year-around. And it wasthis water source, the nearby Sentinel Peak as an early warning tower and thefertility of the desert soil that attracted the early settlers. Then the farmerstook over. Pecan Groves 20 miles south sucked water from the river and ahundred miles south of them, farmers in Mexico took what they needed until

today, jumping off the Grant Road Bridge into the Santa Cruz as a suicideattempt will work only if you wish to break your leg and die of thirst on the riverbed months before you drown. Yet, today's city is a testament to the pastgeography. Ghost towns dot the courses of once flowing rivers and followingone will lead you to the other.

Barsoom is no different. Ancient cities were built along sources of water thatkept them alive and it is these dead cities that delineate the shorelines of theancient seas and the water courses of the ancient rivers.

So how?

First of all, we must delete from each map all modern political features. Nomodern cities that were built after the seas were gone. But we must leave theancient Orovar cities of Aaanthor and Thark, the oldest known cities of Gathol.Why? Because these define the limits of the seas in ancient times.

We know that Gathol was built upon an island in Throxeus. Therefore, we nowhave an island and know that this island existed within the ancient sea and
http://www.erbzine.com/mag13/1351.htmlhttp://www.erbzine.com/mag13/1351.htmlhttp://www.erbzine.com/mag13/1351.htmlhttp://www.erbzine.com/mag13/1351.htmlhttp://home.westman.wave.ca/~hillmans/http://www.erbzine.com/mag13/1370.htmlhttp://www.erbzine.com/mag13/1351.htmlhttp://www.erbzine.com/mag13/1351.htmlhttp://www.erbzine.com/mag13/1351.htmlmailto:[email protected]://home.westman.wave.ca/~hillmans/http://www.erbzine.com/mag15/1565.html


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where that sea once was. We know that many of the ancient Orovar and now-dead cities were built upon the shores of the ancient seas, so by leaving these,we have an idea of where these shores once lay. And we know that the ToonolMarsh was once a part of Throxeus which gives us further shorelines.

We also know that the western edge of the Toonol Marsh is bordered by hills, asare the western areas of the lands of Manator and the totality of Bantoom, bothof which indicate shoreline features. Hills in the sea such as Gathol implyislands, hills on the shore imply sea-cliffs.

Now we have an idea. Not much but something to use as a base. So we turnto what maps we have.

We start with the Lowell map and we remove all the canali for if these were the waterways, thenthey were built after the seas dried and would cross dead sea bottom and lands with equalabandon other than the earlier lines would indicate ancient cities but how do we tell an old landcanali from a new sea-bottom canali? The dark areas do give a clue. Are these desert orgrassland/forest? We do know that the waterways mainly come from the North Pole so themajority of the canali imply the north pole (obviously, Lowell flipped the map he drew).

Next, there is the MOLA map which isdistorted as are every flat map. But the

MOLA will show highlands and lowlandsand with this we can begin the process ofmapping the five oceans of Barsoom.

Notice that here, blue represents lowlands,red mountains, brown highlands and greenmoderate lowlands. Were we to assume
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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the yellow to be seacoast, then the green becomes shallow water and the bluedeep water. Thus we have our main coastline to show that much of thenorthern hemisphere was under water and as Throxeus was the greatest of thefive seas, this must be Throxeus. We see that Elysus Mons is an island withinThroxeus so this can easily be Gathol and this island proves that yellow is shore

for were green to be land, then Gathol would be a peninsula, not an island.Gathol, as an island, forces us to accept green as shallow coastal seas.

Hellas Planitis is the Sea of Torquas, the green Arryo Planeta is the shallow seaof Korus with that line of green craters north and then curving east becomesthe River Iss which will meander around to enter Korus from the south. Whydoes Iss enter Korus from the South? Because the Valley of Lost Souls is nearthe mouth of the Iss and Korus and John Carter crossed that valley to reachOmean. Ice-bound cliffs were described which implies a near antarctic area.So the River Iss must enter Korus from the south.

That bluish strip above Argyo is the Toonol Marsh and the three white-cappedmountains become the Artolian Hills.

Thus if Omean is the next ocean, then Korus, Torquas and Throxeus becomefour of the five. But what of the fifth?

On Earth we refer to the Seven Seas which are North Atlantic, South Atlantic,North Pacific, South Pacific, Arctic, Indian and Mediterranean even though theNorth and South Atlantic are one ocean. So if we look at Throxeus, we see twoland masses jutting north into Throxeus, effectively dividing it into East andWest Throxeus. There are our five seas: West Throxeus, East Throxeus,

Torquas, Korus and Omean.

The result is shown thus:

Admittedly, this is a very coarse outlinebut for a first draft it gives an idea ofwhere to go. Note the coastlines shownin red. These clearly define the fourmain oceans of Barsoom.

We also know that certain cities wereOrovar sea-ports. Torquas, Aaanthor,Xanator, and by implication of this map,Exum and Horz. Thark and Warhoon,however, are inland. But Lothar was also

a seaport that sailed Throxeus? How can that be when Lothar is near Aaanthorin Torquas?


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I believe the answer is in York. York was a major city in England and whenpeople moved to the New World, they brought their memories of York andcalled their new home, 'New' York. The Lotharians were a sea-coastal peopleuntil they were forced to migrate across the muddy marshes to found theircurrent city. So Old Lothar would be a seacoast city and as the people

migrated, they named their new home Lothar in memory of their old.

Was Torquas an isolated sea? Perhaps, but as the lands dried, the people wouldnaturally migrate along whatever water they could find and that means thatthe muddy marshes they followed may well be a bay or straight that connectedThroxeus to Torquas. Mola shows two possibilities, one lowland that movesnorth between two mountains to Throxeus and another than wanders northeastto Throxeus. Either could be the one. For simplicity I chose the northern routebecause as the bay dried into marsh then dried up, that would form a moisturetrap to form the forest of Manator.

As the Toonol bay dried into the Toonol Marsh, the River Iss would meandersouth, passing through another seaport that became isolated. Being a lowerarea, this seaport would become the Koal Forest and Koal, once a seaport,would isolate itself for protection from the hoards desperately seeking water.

Amhor, once an island, is now a hilly region housing the new city of Amhor,resulting in this freehand drawing:

Note that the Artolian Hills are thatbrown ridge to the right that extends

to the brown ridge on the left. Amhoris an island above a larger island thatdelineates the Toonol Bay (nowMarsh) and the brown smudge to theleft of Toonol are the Phundahl hills.With the exception of Thark andWarhoon, all cities I marked arecoastal. Obviously Thark andWarhoon are either on a river or an

oasis. I have no data and so no opinion on which.

We now have a general idea of the place but we need more details. If we lookat the Lowell map, we see strips of dark land stretching across the planet,these would be the fertile ones of forest and lush grassland with the lighter


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areas desert or veldt.

Now, if Korus were the center of the Issus religion and therefore, 'heaven', then I'd want it isolatedto prevent the great unwashed masses interfering with my works by playing tourist. And as Korusprobably lies within the Great Desert south of Toonol, this is where it should be. The rest of theplanet now falls into place. If we ignore the canali/waterways and modern cities, we can add thelush areas such to make this:

Then we see that Thark and Warhoon were farming cities and not seaports. We also see a fewother dark spots from the Lowell map, some of which could be cities and others water pumpingstations. Which is which?

Why live at 80 degrees north in the snow if you don't have to? Look at a mapof Earth. What cities do we have that far north? Honestly, none. But at 70N


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we see: Hammerfest & Vordo, Norway, Murmansk, Russia, and Barrow Alaska.None of which would be considered worth visiting unless you were stuck there.Even the Inuit would move south if they could. So the most northern spotswould be melting and pumping stations to feed a dying planet. In fact, anyspot in the ocean would be a new station so look at those along the coast or

inland to reveal a number of ancient cities, including: Korad, Exum, Gathol,Amhor and a number of unnamed cities that may or may not be dead.

Our freehand map now looks like this:

and when cleaned up, we see the final result:


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The Yellow race would be in the north above the Artolian Hills, the Black in the southern desertsfighting the Green Hoards and perfecting their military skills, the red along the equator and north toHorz until the seas dried to force them together to form the Red Race.

Here then is what Barsoom looked like a half million years ago. Imagine thefleets of sail following the winds across the oceans, the shallow bargesfollowing the mighty Iss and Torquas Bay, the stone piers filled with bow-carrying Panthans and the unnamable fish pulled from the seas to feed themasses. See the Green hoards, small in number existing in the southerndeserts vainly seeking to sack the walls of mighty Thark and Warhoon, to finallysucceed as these cities were abandoned. The Orovars driven to a few isolatedlands, some to intermarry for survival to form the Red Race, others to hide fromGreen and Red man. What wonders could we see of Barsoom at it's might, apeople who turned technology not to war but to comfort.

Rick Johnson

See the other Rick Johnson features at:Mapping Barsoom I: Can It Be Done? ERBzine 1370Mapping Barsoom II: Compromises ERBzine 1562

Barsoom Questions ERBzine 1578

The ERBzine Guide to Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars is locatedat:

ERBzine 1351

BILL HILLMAN

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