06 Museum of Lands, Mapping & Surveying - BRISBANE, QLD

From pegs in the ground and spider web catchers, to Queensland's master clock and  pencil extenders - we uncover the tools and techniques that have shaped our understanding of the landscape around us. 

In this episode, we chat with Museum of Lands, Mapping & Surveying curator Kaye Nardella, who charts our course through the museum's interesting collection. 

Discover how maps have the power to tell compelling stories, like the surprising existence of pineapple farms and vineyards in Brisbane's past.

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Transcript

Kaye: 0:00

I love maps they described him as the Don Bradman of Australian Explorers cadastral maps, topographic maps, thematic maps and tourism maps as a cartographer, I didn't understand why our department would be managing time

Kate: 0:19

Welcome to Roadshow and tell a podcast for people hoping to improve their pub trivia team score. I'm your host, Kate, and I'll visit museums so you can learn things you never knew you wanted to. Today we're going to the Museum of Lands Mapping and Surveying in Brisbane, run by the Queensland Department of Resources. Yep, that's right. A museum all about maps. The museum is situated in the heart of the Brisbane C B D on Edward Street and is on the traditional lands of the Turrbal and Jagera people. So, We chat to cartographer curator, map connoisseur, an all round delightful human being, Kaye Nadella. And she navigates us through the world of mapping, including how early explorers made sense of unknown lands, how maps tell stories of how Brisbane and Southeast Queensland evolved over time, and even why knowing the local time is important to calculating longitude. So join us as we charter course through everything lands, mapping and surveying. Could you please introduce yourself?

Kaye: 1:27

Hi, my name is Kaye Nardella and I'm the senior curator of, of the museum. I was appointed to this role in 2007. The previous curator of the museum was Bill Kitson, and Bill is still involved with the museum as a volunteer for which we're very grateful. My background, I started as a cartographic cadet with the Department of Mapping and Surveying, which is our department in 1978. And I had an interest in maps, and so that's cartography is the creating maps. So that's what I did when I first started with this department.

Kate: 2:01

And how did this museum come to be?

Kaye: 2:03

This museum was started in 1982. It was started by Bill Kitson who worked for our department. Our department had a large collection of surveying artifacts. And Bill needed to find a job within our department because, Bill's background, he's a surveyor, and he had reached a certain age, whereas a surveyor the he needed to come and work in the office. He was no longer required to work out in the field. So they asked Bill, what would he like to do, and he said he'd like to create a museum. And the department felt this was a really great idea. So that's how the museum started.

Kate: 2:38

And what kind of things is there in the museum and what services do you provide?

Kaye: 2:42

Okay. The things in the department, the museum, when it started in 1982, it was all about artifacts. So we had a collection of artifacts, which are objects some that our department had purchased from in the 1880s and kept safe. So Bill used those artifacts to create displays in the museum. But over time, it was suggested to him that perhaps he could find some information out about the artifacts to tell some stories. So he was able to come up with a list of the first 700 surveyors that worked in Queensland from 1839 to the 1940s. And so he researched the family history on all of those early surveyors. And so as a result, through Bill's effort, we have the wonderful artifacts, but we have a photographic collection of over 6,000 photographs, capturing, mapping and surveying in land administration in Queensland. We have original material, we have artwork, we have cartoons, we have diaries that, that we obtain from families of those surveyors and cartographers. We also have a library to help us with research. So there are books and there are journals. And Bill also started and created a biographical clipping file and subject clipping file. So we have over 1,500 files that we can use when we are researching information about mapping and surveying in Queensland.

Kate: 4:01

Through looking at the maps, how can you see that Queensland has changed over time?

Kaye: 4:05

Through looking at our maps, which I, as part of my, my role, I'm using maps research all the time. We have the earliest maps from 1841. So we can see when maps where not many features had been recorded on maps. We can see the change in the recording of the, the features, the rivers, the mountain ranges. We can see that through the progression of our historical maps. And we can also see the progression of the cutting up of Queensland into blocks that were taken up by people as farmers and, and shop owners and, and those sorts of things.

Kate: 4:42

Okay. Let's talk about those early surveyors. What type of people were surveyors?

Kaye: 4:46

They were male always male. They would've had to have a number of skills. They would have to have been able to use maths cuz trigonometry was an important skill in surveying. So they would have to have had knowledge of maths. They would've had to have, had some artistic skills as well, because the earliest surveyors, when they created a survey, they recorded that information into field books. And then they themselves would've had to use that information to create the survey plan.

Kate: 5:14

A survey plan is a document, whereas cadastral information or property boundary information is recorded with property descriptions.

Kaye: 5:22

So it, it would record where survey has placed a peg. There'd be a circle marked on the survey plan. They'd draw another circle where another survey mark was placed, and then they would have the bearing and distance between those lines recorded on the survey plan. And they would've had to shade where relief was and record the information. So they'd have to write really well also. and, and it was a fairly, a fairly isolated existence, so you could be surveying the back and beyond. And so you'd have to be self-sufficient cuz you'd have to bring all your own equipment or your own food the horses to get you there. There were no corner shops that you could visit and restock. So they'd have to be resilient resourceful and, and accept isolated conditions.

Kate: 6:09

Can you tell me about the surveying process and how it's changed over time? When we talk about surveying here, we're specifically talking about land surveying. There's also other branches such as railway and mining surveying, but here we're specifically talking about land surveying.

Kaye: 6:24

Okay. The, the surveying process can involve three key things. It's measuring angles, measuring distances, and measuring heights. Oh. So some background with regard to Queensland. Queensland was a penal colony. And in the late 1830s, the decision was made in England that they wanted to open the Moreton Bay District to free settlement. And if you're going to do that, you need to send surveyors to do three types of surveys. They have to do trigonometric surveys, they have to do feature surveys, and then they can start doing cadastral surveys where they cut up the land. So three surveyors were sent to Moreton Bay to this area in 1839. And they were Dixon, Stapleton and Warner. And so they created a baseline. They measured a really exact distance, I think it was three miles. And it's on the way to Cunningham's Gap. And then they would've set up their their angle measuring equipment on one end of the line. They were measured to cited to Mount Flinders recorded an angle. They would've written down to the other end of their baseline, measured an angle to Mount Flinders. They know two angles and they know an exact known distance. Using trigonometry, they can work out the length of those two lines. So it's all about triangles. So then they would shift to all over the Moreton Bay area and based on those at initial triangle, they would take sites to other mountain peaks and gather angles. And so then they could work out all of the, the distances and bearings between features between mountains. And so in display, in our museum, we have one of the maps that they created, and it was published in 1841, which is the trig map of Southeast Queensland showing all these triangles that they created to manage their mapping and manage their later surveying.

Kate: 8:08

Wow. It turns out that trigonometry, the bane of my year nine existence Had the last laugh by being an actually practical branch of mathematics if you are a 19th century surveyor.

Kaye: 8:19

So they would do the trigg surveys and then they had to do feature surveys. So they had to survey the rivers. They had to survey the creeks to know the shapes of those, cuz then they could include those in maps. And once you have that control through the trig surveys, they were able to start cutting up blocks to do cadastral surveys. And that's where they work out, where they want to start and they put a peg in the ground and then have some idea of what size and shape block they want. They would then put an peg in another corner, measure the distance in bearing record that go to a third spot, fourth spot until they close their survey and they'd have all that information that would create a a parcel of land and that's recorded and that information is then from the field notes recorded on a survey plan. And those survey plans are the building blocks that create all our cadastral maps. And so I should go back in those 1839 when they arrived, they would've had circumferences, which are like large compasses that you can use to measure angles. So that would've been the first type of in equipment they would've used for angles. They then would've purchased as they became available, theodolites, and theodolite were the main type of instrument used in surveying up until probably the 19 1950s and 1960s. These days we have things called total stations. And they're used to measure angles. With distance measuring the 1839 surveyors would've brought a Gunter's chain, which is a special chain that has a hundred links and in each link is just around eight inches. And so they would've stretched that out to measure distances when they wanted to be fairly accurate. So when they were subdividing town blocks, they would've measured the distance with the Gunter's chains. They would've also brought a perambulator, which is another name is a surveyor's wheel, and it's around wheel that they know the circumference and, and it has a special device at the center that each time it's pushed around, it clicks over. So, so they would start at the beginning of the day pushing or dragging this perambulator on the, on horseback and, and they wheel it along. And you could probably possibly do 14 miles in a day cuz it was challenging work. And so at the end of the day, you'd look at the device in the center and read how many times it's gone around. And so you'd write that down, you know, the circumference, you'd work out, multiply, you'd work out the distance that you've dragged that perambulator. And they used those when they were surveying pastoral runs, which are really large blocks when you you just couldn't be accurate. Right.

Kate: 10:57

And could that get over like scrubby brush as well? whereas

Kaye: 11:01

That's, that's a really good question because what happened, with dragging the perambulator, each surveyor had their own table where they'd have adjustments. So if it was really sandy soil, they'd say for every revolution they'd add a certain amount. Mm-hmm. if it was really rocky soil for each revolution, they'd add another measurement because, Yes, the, the ground is not constant. So they had adjustments. And for heights, there are a number of ways you can measure heights. And we, again, have examples of all of these. You can use uh, hypsometer. A hypsome ter was a device that had a thermometer and had a special container where you would pour pure water and then you'd heat the pure water. You'd have a little device underneath it that you'd have something to burn and you'd lighter up and it'd heat the the boiling water, and the thermometer would be above that. And when the water boils you would record the measurement on the thermometer. And someone had created a table to say that if your water boiled at this temperature, this is the height. If your water boiled at this temperature, this is the height. So you could take that with you to get an approximate idea of the height. And we know that early explorers in, in Queensland had hypsometer, like Leichardt had a hypsometer with him to help him measure approximate heights of places he was going

Kate: 12:18

so these early maps that we have, do they tell a story about displacement and what happened to the people that lived before White settlement?

Kaye: 12:26

The early surveyors sometimes recorded the footprints of, in indigenous peoples So they marked on in their field notes, which were then transferred to the survey plans, Aboriginal tracks. So they recorded information about our indigenous peoples. There's an 1839 survey plan, future survey of the Breakfast Creek, and it's marked an area where it had aboriginal fish traps. And there are other survey plans that have marked Bora grounds, particularly in the Innisvale area.

Kate: 12:58

How do maps support native title claims?

Kaye: 13:01

Maps can help because they record tenure on our land and ownership of land. So anyone researching a history of, of a block of land to determine native title issues can refer to historical maps to see what type of tenure was ever issued over the block, whether it was freehold, whether it was a farming lease, whether it was a reserve. That sort of information helps build a history of the block of land, which allows determinations to be made for native title.

Kate: 13:30

Kay, tells me about her favorite part of the museum. It's a map wall that she created that showcases 16 of the 30,000 plus historical MAP scans available from her department over time since 1841, when the first Queensland map was created.

Kaye: 13:45

So, There are different themes. There are cadastral maps, which are maps showing property boundaries and property descriptions. There are topographic maps which show relief, and then there are themed maps. There are maps that show where the local authority boundaries were in, in 1,902. There are maps that show where the rabbit infestation was really bad. So they, they just capture the essence, I think, of Queensland.

Kate: 14:10

Do you think the essence of Queensland is rabbit infestation? No, no. maybe just floods. Yeah. Are there flood maps?

Kaye: 14:19

Yes, there are flood maps and there's an example of one of the flood maps on the, on the map wall.

Kate: 14:24

There are 10,000 historical map scans on the Queensland government's open data portal, including flood maps. And interestingly, the earliest flood maps found were for the 1893 floods and Kaye says that they were worse than the 20, 22, 20 11, and 1974 Brisbane floods. Very scary stuff. What's your favorite map?

Kaye: 14:46

My favorite map... queensland was created as a colony in 1859. Governor Bowen was the person sent out by the British government to manage the, the colony. He arrived and in 1860 he was taken on a tour of South East Queensland, and someone created a map of his tour. And so that's my favorite map because it captures the southeast corner in 1860, and it's showing all the, the, the roads that were in existence at that stage. The place names, the creeks and the rivers. It's just a really, really beautiful map. Okay, can I have a second?

Kate: 15:25

Yes,

Kaye: 15:25

my second favorite map would be an 1889 topographic map drawn over parts of Brisbane. It's over the airport area. And it was drawn because at that period there was concern in, in Australia that Russia was expanding in the Pacific area. And so there was this big concern if we're going to be invaded, we have to have some idea of where Creek Crossings are, where it's firm underfoot for artillery. So that was why the Queensland Defense Force from the first map was created in 1886 and they, they started creating topographic maps over the Queensland area, the Brisbane area, because they needed to be able to defend. So this map is just wonderful cos you look at it closely and it'll say at high tide impassable. And it'll say firm for artillery And it's, it's just, you can see the military focus of the map, but from a historical point of view, it's also incredibly valuable because it captures the airport area up to Nundah in 1889. And it was only when I was looking at this map that I discovered there were growing pineapples in this area.

Kate: 16:36

Really?

Kaye: 16:36

They recorded that there were wineries,

Kate: 16:39

no! Wineries in Brisbane?

Kaye: 16:41

In Brisbane. So it's the most beautiful map and it records the names of the people who had farms, their names are shown there, and the roads. So it's just like a snapshot of Brisbane at that time.

Kate: 16:53

What are the three most important things on a map?

Kaye: 16:56

It depends on what type of map. The three most important things on a topographic map are the legend, cuz that tells you what all the symbols are and it, it provides information. The second thing is the north point. So you know the direction that the map is facing and then the contours cuz that gives you the height. So on a topographic map, it's the legend, it's the north point and it's the contours.

Kate: 17:20

What are some interesting things about Brisbane that we might not know, but you found out through maps?

Kaye: 17:25

There's a 1897 road map over the, the Brisbane area, and I was doing some research and I was looking at this map and I didn't know that there was a locality called Happy Valley and a road called happy Valley Road where Stafford Road is now. Oh. So, so that I found really interesting. Another interesting thing I found again, I was doing queries and I was looking at a Keller map dated 1895 over the Toowong Cemetery area and where the botanical gardens, Mount Cootha botanical gardens are now located, that part of that area was originally a rifle range reserve. So people would've gone there to practice in the 1890s to practice their shooting skills.

Kate: 18:12

If you could be any topographical feature, what would it be and why?

Kaye: 18:16

I'd like to be a mountain. In particular, I'd like to be Mount Lindsay. And I'd like to be able to watch the clouds and the weather and then watch the world pass. and I have an interest in Mount Lindsay cuz when I first started working for the department, I started in a compiling three section, which is the section that drew topographic maps. And one of the maps that I created was, the first one is the 25 Thau topographic map over the Mount Lindsay, Mount Barney area. And that was tracing lots of contours. So I became very familiar with Mount Lindsay and Mount Barney area. So that's the feature I would like to be!

Kate: 18:53

And Kaye, as a cartographer, do you have a good sense of direction then?

Kaye: 18:57

I think so. I believe so. I know. I love maps and I'm always aware of working out where the North Point is on a map.

Kate: 19:04

Why do you love working here Kay?

Kaye: 19:06

Okay. I love working here because each day I discover something new about Queensland through my historical research. And I also love working here because through scanning and digitizing and working through finding aids and making these things discoverable, I can help people research Information about the history of land development in Queensland.

Kate: 19:33

At the entrance to the museum is a huge image blown up, showing a man standing on top of a mountain, taking in a view.

Kaye: 19:39

It's uh, survey survey from our department, Frank Stompy, and he's on top of Mount Barney. And they would've had to carry this equipment to the top of Mount Barney. So it's incredibly heavy, and it's part of a trig survey and they're bouncing probably a beam off another mountain top of a reflector to measure distances.

Kate: 19:57

Kaye then shows me a bust that's standing at the left of the museum entrance.

Kaye: 20:02

Okay. This bust is really special to the museum. It's a bust of our first surveyor general Augustus Charles Gregory. He was appointed in 1859 and a very interesting gentleman. The Australian Geographic wrote an article about Gregory a number of years ago and they described him as the Don Bradman of Australian Explorers cuz he was an explorer, he was an inventor, he was an administrator and he was a surveyor and left a really important legacy in Queensland. You can usually determine that any place named, called Gregory in Queensland was named after Augustus's Charles.

Kate: 20:38

So Gregory Terrace?

Kaye: 20:39

Yes. There's a pastoral district of south Gregory. There's a Gregory River. Lots of Gregory's And when he applied for the job of Surveyor General of Queensland, cause he, he was our first Surveyor General appointed in 1859. We have a copy of his letter of application and it's brilliant cuz he says: it is, I conceive unnecessary to recapitulate surfaces under the government in Australia during the past 17 years, as they are doubtless sufficiently known to his excellency. And I trust that the experience obtained during so long a period in this Department of Public Service will entitle my application to pay considerations.

Kate: 21:15

He knows he's got the job

Kaye: 21:17

It's brilliant. It's just brilliant.

Kate: 21:19

What are these tools Kaye?

Kaye: 21:20

These are instruments used for measuring angles. So this is an example of a circumferenter

Kate: 21:26

So horizontal angles called bearings were measured clockwise between astronomical true north or the magnetic north, and a line from the observer to a given point. The circumferenters were large magnetic compasses with sighting veins, which determined the magnetic bearing or direction of a survey line. The one on display is six inches in diameter and dated from 1840. By the 1860s, the circumferenters were replaced by theodolites, which allowed surveyors to read horizontal and vertical angles, as well as take astronomical observations. The theodolites on display are six to eight inches, and they look like small brass telescopes mounted on top of a compass. There's another three instruments on display that look like a simple piece of wire twisted into three sides of a rectangle. Kay has a really great story on the origin of this.

Kaye: 22:22

We had to gather information and list them to provide that information to the Queensland Museum. So we were going through the artifacts and we came to these three bent pieces of wire. And I thought to myself, why do we have three bent pieces of wire? This is bizarre. And Bill saw them and he said, ah, spider web catchers! I said, what? And he said, yeah, spider web catchers. And he explained how they're used by surveyors to capture a spiderweb that was used to replace crosshairs in our theodolites and levels. And I've been slightly doubting Thomas. Okay. Yeah. Right. So I went to trove digitized newspapers and did a search on spiderweb catchers and found lots of stories. And I was able to determine through those stories that they were still using spiderwebs for the crosshairs in instrument up until the 1940s, and there used to be factories in England where they just bred spiders for the spiderwebs that they then sold to the engineering and manufacturing companies that were making the theodolites and the, the levels.

Kate: 23:23

That's outrageous.

Kaye: 23:25

These are examples of instruments used for measuring angles. There's the hypsometer that I described to you. So you can see the thermometer. There's the the sleeve that you put the pure water in, in, and at the base is where you put the fuel that you burn to heat the water to boiling point.

Kate: 23:42

So remember, the pressure hypsometer measures height based on the boiling point of water at different altitudes. The longer the bubble, the more accurate the reading.

Kaye: 23:52

these are some of the instruments that were used to measure distances. We have an example of, of Gunter's chain and you can see it's got a hundred links and each of those is just under eight inches. And at every 10th link they have a special little marker and that was to allow you, so you didn't have to stretch this thing out and then start at one and get up to 79 to measure 79 links. You just went to the 10th chain mark and however many points there are on each one of those special markers tells you where you are in the, the link. So see how there are three marks on that one? Mm-hmm. that would say you're either at the 30 link mark or the 70 link mark. Okay. So then you just have to count from basically one to 10, one to nine to work out. So it'd be like 30 and 39. So you could measure distance.

Kate: 24:39

Right. Okay. And these would be out taut?

Kaye: 24:42

Yes. Yes. Okay. They'd be stretched.

Kate: 24:43

So gunther's chains were used typically for smaller rural and town blocks for greater accuracy. While perambulators were used to measure distances for larger feature and run surveys. The perambulator or surveyors wheel basically looks like a modern day measuring wheel.

Kaye: 25:00

And and that's an example of a perambulator that was used to measure those long distances. And you can see the little device that that ticks over. And in that table it said Atkinson, when he was surveying on the Crest Book run in 1869 if it was undulating land, he made an adjustment, one link in a chain.

Kate: 25:18

Remember that these wheels are used to measure terrain of all types. So each surveyor had their own method to allow for this.

Kaye: 25:25

If it was long grass and river bottoms. If it was two links if it was Moderate Hills ridges and timber. It was three links and if it was very steep it was seven links to a chain. That's how much he adjusted his measurements. And the next device that they used to measure distance are the the steel bands. So that's a steel, really narrow steel strip that they used. They would stretch at a, a particular pressure and to measure distances. So that followed on from the Gunter's chain, and we were using those again, until total stations started replacing those. This is an example of a reverse tree shield. When surveyors are doing cadastral surveys, and in this case, when they're doing border surveys, they will put a peg in the ground and record measurements. But they also try and find a backup system, so if anything happens to that peg marking the corner they can look to see if there's a suitable tree in the area, and if they find one, they can carve broad arrow for state government and they can record some information that says what sort of portion number it's near. And they will measure a distance and bearing from the survey peg to the tree. And that information's recorded on the survey plans. And then a hundred years later the landowner wants to reinstate that corner. He contacts the surveyor. Survey or finds the earliest survey, finds survey plans over the area that may provide references to these trees. He finds a reference. He goes out, looks to see if he can find the tree, cuz he knows where it is. Cuz the pegs, peg might have been gone. So he has to reinstate that corner if there's a reference tree and reference trees, once they carve into them over time the tree heals itself so it regrows. And so a hundred years later the surveyor comes with his chainsaw and chops off the regrowth and it, it comes off like that and it's a mirror image, reverse mirror image of what's still on the reference tree. And so that's what this is. It's, we haven't damaged the original tree. This is the regrowth and it's a mirror image cuz you can see the f e r so the original tree would still be there. So that's the regrowth. Fun facts, our how our cartographers, our drafts people at different periods they'll be creating the survey plans, and this survey plan was drawn in 1914 over a block of land in the Stanthorpe area. So there are granite boulders everywhere, and I've counted, there's like over a hundred granite boulders that the poor cartographer has drawn on this survey plan. And, and obviously they got tired of drawing rocks and doing all this information because on one side of this plan, he, he's put some cave people,

Kate: 28:00

and I see them there. They're pretty intricate.

Kaye: 28:02

And, and on this side he has some other images and I initial thought that this person was trying to shoot this person in the back. Dreadful. But when you look closely, we are hoping this person's trying to shoot the snake amongst the rocks.

Kate: 28:14

Oh yes. You can see this snake sneaking up behind and it looks like it's going to bite him in the behind. Yes.

Kaye: 28:19

So we find interesting and creative and fun illustrations on our survey plans when we are doing our historical land research.

Kate: 28:26

he's very creative with his language. Extremely rugged, huge boulders, thick and heavy.

Kaye: 28:31

It's just brilliant. And another story that I tell, again, I was doing some research and I was looking at map showing original pastoral runs

Kate: 28:40

for reference. A pastoral run is a large, usually rural area where people could take leases from the crown to graze authorized livestock, usually sheep or cows.

Kaye: 28:50

And it's in the Darling Downs area and there were three runs that were named starvation Camp, vexation and Burning Thirst, and these are on the Moony adjacent to the Moony River, Darling Downs, you're thinking, and the names came into existence. The runs came into existence in 1852, was someone just having a really bad day to name their runs. The same person owned those three runs. this is, this is an example of that the 1889 topographic map over the Moreton Bay District area. Our department has created cadastral maps, topographic maps, thematic maps and tourism maps. There was a period when we were creating maps for visually impaired, and that's a photograph of the actual topographic 3D map.

Kate: 29:32

So the 3D tactile map has physical rises for the contours and uses vision, color, shadow, and touch for users to understand the whole terrain and physical landscape.

Kaye: 29:44

Yes. Yes. And we made those available to the braille organisations. So it was a really valuable thing that, that we did. So we created ones over Southeast Queensland and Queensland and I have seen ones over New South Wales and Tasmania.

Kate: 29:57

So. And is this your favorite display, the 16 maps?

Kaye: 30:00

Ah, yes. This is my map wall. We have cadastral maps, we have land sales. We have, that's the flood map from 1893. Oh, you would've wanted to be in these high spots in the city center.

Kate: 30:13

Wow. That's a good part of the city that's underwater there.

Kaye: 30:17

Yeah. And see the, they didn't color this, but that, that's where the floodline followed there. Yeah. Right. We have maps that we created from Landside imagery. This is a, a map that shows the original pastoral runs. There was a period when we were doing tourist and regional maps, and so that was a, the Matilda Highway tourist map we created. That's a land sale of the Brigalow area. This is cadastral map that's being, that shows our our survey control information. That's the map showing the prickley pair areas. So I said rabbits, but it's that's the map that shows local authority areas. And I really like this map because until computers until, We created a dcdb, which is a digital cadastral database, gathering all the cadastral information as a base layer, and then you could use, put other layers on top of that. How we managed our land pre that is through working maps. So we had a working map over every location in Queensland. And if anything changed up until the 1980s, there would be cartographers such as myself, we would get the relevant working map out. We would have a document that tells us what the change was. A gazette, usually

Kate: 31:30

a version control?

Kaye: 31:31

Version control. And we would come with our eraser, so we would've erased whatever was there previously and write the new information. And I love this map that I chose because someone accidentally spilled some ink and they, they obviously didn't feel up to trying to erase it, but that's over the Roma district. So that's how we captured change. It's, these were our control documents. Our working maps With mapping, surveying and land administration, at some point, you're probably gonna need to make some calculations, so we've got some of the different types of equipment that was used through time to do those calculations. We have mechanical calculators where you'd set things up and then you'd turn handles and all the mechanisms underneath would rotate and you'd come up with an answer. We'd have tables, log rules and we have facet calculators. And this is the type of calculator that I can remember using that was slowly introduced when I was in high school.

Kate: 32:24

It definitely looks more like a calculator. Yeah.

Kaye: 32:26

Yes, exactly. This is an example. We had a photograph of what a drafting office looked like in 1949. So we have a 1949 map. We have some of the instruments that would've been used, and my favorite thing in this case is this little green, looks like a pencil. And what it is, it's a pencil extender. And if you were using a pencil to do your drafting and you were sketching everything up and then you would go to ink and draw it all up, you couldn't get a new pencil. You couldn't go to the staff clerk or go wherever to say, can I have a new pencil? Until it wouldn't fit in that extra extender. So the little pencil in there is about that, like two centimeters long. And it was only when it fell out of there that you could get a new pencil.

Kate: 33:10

Yes, you heard right. In some classic Queensland government cost saving techniques, staff were not allowed to get a new pencil until their existing pencil was literally used down to a stump.

Kaye: 33:23

We had a Sun Map brand introduced in 1981 and people still remember Sun Map. And they'll contact us and say, Hey, I'm chasing a map, a sun map. And so we put it on everything. My favorite thing is we sponsored some ballooning competition So Sun Map was on there and we had four of these caravans with Sun Map all over them touring the state, selling our products and highlighting the types of services and what our department did.

Kate: 33:51

Now we come to three old looking wooden clocks in the center of museum. One of these is called the"synchronome master clock".

Kaye: 34:00

These, these three clocks are really important. These clocks kept time in Queensland from the 1890s to to 1975. Our department managed these clocks, and as a cartographer, I didn't understand why our department would be managing time. Uh, It's a surveying thing. With surveying, if you are trying to determine longitudes, time is a really critical thing. To work out where, say, Charter's Towers is in relation to Brisbane, you need to determine it's longitude. And so they would use time signals and surveying equipment and taking measurements, using equipment like this to work out the longitude o o of a place. So time was critical to surveying.

Kate: 34:43

Longitude is the distance east or west of a reference point. And knowing the local time is important for calculating longitude because the earth rotates once every 24 hours. So if you know the local time in two different places, you can use that information to calculate the difference in longitudes between these two places.

Kaye: 35:03

So that's why in 1894, the management of these clocks and managing the clocks and keeping time for Queensland was given to our department. 1975, we went digital, so we stopped. That was the first clock, and it was made in Queensland. That was the second one. And it was made overseas, and this is the third. And this kept time from 1938 to 1975.

Kate: 35:26

So it's not the King George square tower clock that took, took time for Queensland?

Kaye: 35:31

It was the Queensland and, and I can find out for you where they were located.

Kate: 35:35

So how would people out in the field refer to these clocks when they're taking the longitude?

Kaye: 35:39

They have telegraphs electrical telegraph. They could send time signals through telegraph, and there's a special machine which you can almost see. There's a tape chronograph, and we've got two of these tape chronographs in our collection. The electrical signal will come and a demark the tape. Because they'd be taking an observation. They would know, at, at a time signal, they'd know where the sun was, say in Brisbane. And then at that time they could take a signal using these instruments of a star or the sun and somehow work out the, the distance allows them to determine longitude. And again, in our collection, we're very fortunate, we have the artifact, that particular item, but we have a photograph with that artifact actually being used. We have information because of the information that Bill Kitson gathered doing the family history of search and those photographic collection, we have photographs of the people who used this equipment in the 1890s, and we know lots of information, biographical information about them. So that allows us to tell stories that we tell in the museum, that we also tell in our museum's websites and that we tell through our social media.

Kate: 36:48

The Museum of Lands Mapping and surveying is open open Monday to Fridays from 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM excluding public holidays and is free entry. The museum has many accessibility features for visitors, starting with being on the ground floor for easy access. There are QR codes placed throughout the exhibits, linking to video and audio stories for each display accompanied by accessible transcripts. Additionally, an immersive virtual tour of the museum is available online, providing a convenient and inclusive way to explore its wonders. There is also a bunch of services that the department provides to help you make the most of the mapping and surveying data available and to assist with historical land research. They digitize original maps and materials, making them accessible through the department's Queensland Globe Platform. This allows people from anywhere in the world to access over 10,000 historical MAP scans, which can be useful for family history research. You can also see some of the interesting stories they find on the department's social media, which will often feature interesting tidbits.

Kaye: 37:54

And I also do presentations to history groups and to Queensland state library and state archives to help people with historical land research. So that's some of the things I do to try and help people be aware of what what information we make available and what, what resources we make available to help people with historical land research.

Kate: 38:17

from pegs in the ground and spider web catchers to Queensland's master clock and drafters pencil extenders. I've learned so much about mapping and surveying from this museum and chatting with Kaye. Who would've thought that Brisvegas, once upon a time, nurtured vineyards and pineapple farms or that the serene Mt Cootha Botanic Gardens once served as an unexpected rifle range? Certainly not me! Thanks to Kaye's insights, though these little nuggets of history have come to light. That's all we have today. Remember that you can check out the maps and exhibits talked about today on our Instagram at Roadshowandtellpodcast. Thanks for listening to Roadshow and Tell. If you enjoyed this deep dive into a specialty museum, make sure you subscribe so you don't miss an episode. We're a new podcast. So if you wanna help support us, please share it with a friend and leave a rating and review. If you are involved with or know of a regional or specialty museum that should be featured, please get in touch at roadshowandtell@gmail.com. I'm your host, Kate. Roadshow and Tell was edited and produced on the lands of the Gadigal people. I acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the various lands on which you may be listening from, and the lands that the museums featured in this podcast reside on. I also acknowledge any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people listening to this podcast. I pay my respects to elders past, present, and emerging, and celebrate the diversity of Aboriginal peoples and their ongoing cultures and connections to the lands and waters of Australia.