Francois de Dainville, in his Le Language des Geographes (1964, p. 162), compiled map symbols for various water crossings from historical European maps (1543-1777).
The symbols include boats (Bac, above), fords (Gué, below)…
…and bridges (Pont, below).
The entire set of symbols in one image:
Great blog – and this post-topic is a fave of mine. Of special interest is the “ford” as it almost never (because you can’t say never) occurs where I live in upstate NY. I have only crossed on once, on a visit to the UK, and I don’t have a copy of the appropriate scaled map to show the symbol for that ford.
I used to work at the USGS but not at the mapping unit, so I never had occasion to map a ford for them. I have their symbol key, but it doesn’t contain anything for a ford. Drat!
Thanks for the swell content, BTW!
I am attempting to locate two fords in the Charles River in Newton Ma. there is some historical reference to them. I located an early 19th century Newton map and there are symbols on the map that correspond to symbols in De Dainville’s “Geographies”s for fords and the historical references. I think I have located the approximate locations of the Fords
Regards
Bob Cerra
– I didn’t think anyone else would be interested in Fords
nice