SECOND CLASS SCOUT

UNDERSTANDING CONTOUR LINES

Make a fist with one hand. Your fist has length, width, and height- contours just like the land.

Holding your fist steady, draw a levelcircle around your highest knuckle. (washable ink will be easy to remove.) Draw another level circle iust below that one. Stat a third line a little lower. Notice that to keep your line level, your pen might have to encircle another knuckle before the third circle is closed.

Continue to draw level circles, each of them the same distance apart. The lines will wander in and out of the valleys between your fingers, over the broad slope on the back of your hand, and across the steep cliffs above your thumb.

After all the lines are drawn, spread your hand flat. Now, like a map, your hand has only width and length. But by looking at the contour lines you have drawn, you can imagine the shape of your fist. Small circles show the tops of your knuckles. The points at which the lines are close together indicate steep areas; the lines that are farther apart are the more gentle contours of vour hand.

The contour lines on a map repre- sent terrain in the same way. Small circles are the tops of hills. Where the lines are close together, a hillside is steep. Where the lines are far apart, the slope of the ground is more gentle.

A note in the map's margin will tell you how far apart the contour lines are spaced. For example, "contour interval 50 feet" means each line is 50 feet higher or lower than its neighboring lines.

Index Lines

Every fifth contour line is darker than the other four. Follow one of these index lines and you'll find a number that is the elevation above sea level.