Everything’s Mapped Out in Room 7638

To the child, in love with maps and pictures,

The universe is vast as his appetite. Ah how immense the world is by lamplight!

--From “Le Voyage”

by Charles Baudelaire

On a clear day, you can see the San Gabriel Mountains from the Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles. Even when the sky’s the color of dirt, though, Room 7638 of that building offers views of the San Gabriels, the western United States, the floor of the ocean and the moons of Jupiter.

The United States Geological Survey’s windowless and bureaucratically bland-looking room is one of 10 “Public Inquiries Offices” nationally where the public can browse through or buy the myriad maps and related publications produced by that federally funded research agency. For the relatively few people who know about it, the hundreds of big, bland-looking, gray, brown and institutional green file cabinets are portals to the universe.

“It’s not that we get lost a lot,” said Bill Turner of Lancaster, explaining why he and his wife Cindy frequent the office. Exactly the opposite, he said, as he systematically rifled through drawers of topographical maps. The 1:24,000 scale topographical maps depicting the roads, trails, terrain, elevations, and other natural and man-made features have helped the Turners to find places few people know exist--Afton Canyon, for example.

“You know where that Stuckey’s (was) on the way to Las Vegas? Well, there’s a canyon back behind it that would make your jaw drop just as much as the Grand Canyon. Huge rock pillars . . . beautiful! But no one ever goes there.”

Except the Carters, who heard about it from a friend, then found it on a map. “These maps tell you everything,” Carter said.

More Than Map Makers

Besides making maps, the USGS conducts research in geology and hydrology; assesses energy, mineral and water resources; evaluates earthquake, volcano, flood, drought, toxic materials, landslide and other hazards; and participates in the exploration of space.

Among other publications on display at the Los Angeles office are books such as “Evaluating Earthquake Hazards in the Los Angeles Region,” “Natural Petroleum Reserves in Alaska” and a microfiche index listing aerial photographs of most of the United States and satellite shots of the whole world (photos can be ordered at prices from $5 for some black-and-white aerials to $500 or more for color satellite shots).

Swinging display boards also advertise dozens of free USGS pamphlets and flyers, from “Finding Your Way With Map and Compass” to “Lithium--Nature’s Lightest Metal” and “Ground-Water Contamination--No Quick Fix.”

But most of the buyers and browsers--many of whom wander over from downtown offices during their lunch breaks--clearly come to let their fingers do the walking over mile after scale mile of the maps the office stocks. As a USGS pamphlet boasts, “from an inventory of 88 million copies of 49,000 maps, the survey distributes more than 10 million copies per year.”

On a recent afternoon, one man sat on the floor before a large file, piecing together a backpacking route through Yosemite National Park. Another collected quad maps of the Long Beach area, which he said will be marked with the locations of water pipes and displayed on the walls of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

An Engineer From London

Simon Dell, a London-based irrigation engineer, dropped in to locate the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge east of San Jose, where selenium deposits are causing major ecological problems. Dell is “developing the concept of transporting water as vapor,” which, he claims, would distill out poisons. By checking out the geographical contours of the land at Kesterson, he might determine the feasibility of applying his concept there.

Meanwhile, Pat Moore of Long Beach went about gathering a dozen or so quad maps of Orange County. “I’m with a radio-controlled model-airplane club, and an ongoing problem we have is finding places to fly,” he said.

“We had one guy who was in here almost all day for a week putting together a Pacific Crest trail trip,” said USGS “office chief” Dave Compas. “It takes 8 to 10 dozen maps just to get through California.”

Professional and recreational prospectors stock up on maps reflecting USGS research on mineral potential. Environmentalists make use of specialized maps such as “The Pacific Coast Ecological Inventory,” a color-coded guide to endangered species. And maps such as “Hydrology of the San Bernardino and San Gabriel Mountains” are of use to people with an interest in water resources or waste disposal.

Some folks even stop by to Christmas shop, Compas said, explaining that maps of the planets were hot gift items for astronomers and amateur stargazers last year.

Gobs on Mars, Jupiter

“We have gobs of materials on Mars, Jupiter . . . just pages and pages in the index on the planets,” Compas said, unfolding an image of a gray, rock-strewn landscape--a “thematic” of the spot where the Viking lander set down on Mars.

The aptly named Compas has been with the USGS for four years. Before that he was a cartographer with the Defense Mapping Agency. (“I’d better not discuss it; most of those maps were classified,” he said.)

But despite such constant exposure, Compas has not developed an aversion to longitudes and latitudes. Rather, “I have an extreme fascination with maps,” he said. “I’ve had a thing for maps since I was a kid.”

‘I Stole Dad’s Atlas’

Garry Sanchez, the information specialist who runs the office with Compas, has only one map on the wall of his home. But that doesn’t mean he’s not an aficionado.

“When I was 5 years old, I stole Dad’s car atlas. I sat down with it and figured out there were roads to places I didn’t even know existed,” he said. “From then on I was close to being obsessed with maps . . . Rocks and maps were my two loves as a child, and that’s what I deal with today . . . It’s phenomenal that I haven’t got tired of looking at them.”

Ron Hoffman, an El Camino College geography teacher, shares Compas and Sanchez’ enthusiasm. “Maps and atlases are geographers’ basic tools,” he said as he pored over 1:24,000 and 1:62,500 scale depictions of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula one afternoon.

Hoffman had come to Room 3638 to find maps of the Glen Canyon area for a planned vacation. But first he had to take care of more urgent business: “A co-worker and I were debating a trivia question: ‘What’s the western-most point in the contiguous U.S.?’ ” he said.

A moment later, a map revealed the answer.

“Ha!,” Hoffman said, jabbing his finger at a little finger of land. “I was right! It’s Cape Alava! Ha! Ha-ha!”