releasing rare sp. localities

[Michael.Chamberland]

>
> As a denizen of Texas myself, I can attest to what David Taylor says; some
> counties truly are too big here (and probably in some other western states
> as well).  Our solution for times when we don't want to release point data
> about sites is to give the name of the 7.5' topo quad.  The area of one quad
> is big enough to make the location suitably vague while maintaining
> uniformity in the amount of detail provided, regardless of the size of the
> county.
>
> Melissa C. Winans, Collection Manager
> Vertebrate Paleontology Lab, Univv. Texas - Austin

This is really just a little quibble; I've consulted E. L. Little's Atlas of
United States Trees to check his distribution maps.  These have outlines of
all states and counties.  The counties of Texas are the same general size
as those of the rest of the states in the central and eastern US.  The
exeption is for about 8 Texas counties in the westernmost spur of the state.
These are larger and roughly the size of the average county in New Mexico.
The largest counties in the continental US appear to be Coconino Co., AZ,
San Bernardino Co., CA, and Nye and Elko Cos., NV.  Each is larger than
Connecticut.

Michael Chamberland