Evaluating Geographic Arguments

Lab 3

 

The purpose of this lab is to examine this soundness of this generalization about the geography of the evolving rail system, using ArcView and the railway and population GIS for Victorian England and Wales.

 

The building of railroads required so much capital that rail companies were at pains to ensure that their large investments would eventually return a profit.  Competition among them for the rights to build one route or another was also stiff.  Under these circumstances companies looked first to establishing lines providing transport of natural resources to industrial centers, and the geography of the rail system in 1860 clearly attests this pre-occupation.

 

 

To assess this claim using the GIS requires the creation of maps showing the extent of the rail system around 1860 and a map showing the major centers of natural resources and industry. Then the rail lines can be overlaid the map indicating the centers of natural resources and industry so that we can use visual inspection and interpretation to “test” the claim.

 

Use the following map to create and label major centers of natural resources in the GIS.

To create the map in ArcView:

 

  1. In a view, add the theme Census 1861 and use the legend editor to change the color to be very light grey.
  2. Use the find function (the binoculars) to locate the Newcastle census registration district.
  3. On the second row of the tool bar, activate the Select Feature button/function.
  4. With the select feature active, hold down the shift button and click on the RDs that approximate the extent of the coal deposits in the Newcastle area.
  5. Use the Text label button/function to make a call out label: Newcastle Coal fields
  6. Go to Theme on the menu bar, choose convert to shapefile, and save this map to your storage space: resources.shp.
  7. Continue with the other coal fields, being sure to “convert to shapefile” using the same filename at each step so that each of your highlighted and labeled areas are saved.

 

 

After you have created a map showing the major centers of natural resources, overlay the rail system around 1860 by adding the theme rail 1854.

 

Use the following map to label the major industrial centers.

 

Evaluate the generalization.