HISTORY OF CARTOGRAPHY A capacity to understand the nature of maps is possessed even by peoples whom we are in the habit of describing as "savages." Wandering tribes naturally enjoy a great advantage in this respect over sedentary ones. Many arctic voyagers have profited from rough maps drawn for them by Eskimos. Specimens of such maps are given in C. F. Hall's Life with the Esquimaux (London, 1864). Henry Youle Hind, in his work on the Labrador Peninsula (Lon don, 1863) praises the map which the Montagnais and Nasquapee Indians drew upon bark.
Tupaya, a Tahitian, when on board the "Endeavour," gave an account of his navigations, and having a very complete knowledge of the islands, and having soon mastered the meaning and use of charts, was able to give directions for the construction of a chart showing the islands. Raraka drew a map in chalk of the Paumotu archipelago on the deck of Capt. Wilkes's vessel; Marshall is landers possessed curious cane charts. Far superior were maps found among the semi-civilized Mexicans when the Spaniards in vaded their country : cadastral plans of villages and maps of the provinces of the empire of the Aztecs, of towns and the coast. Montezuma presented Cortes with a map, painted on Nequen cloth, of the Gulf coast. Peru, the empire of the Incas, had not only ordinary maps, but also maps in relief, for Pedro Sarmiento da Gamboa (History of the Incas, translated by A. R. Markham, 1907) tells us that the 9th Inca (died ir9r) ordered such reliefs of certain localities in a district which he had recently conquered and intended to colonize. These were the first relief maps.
The ancient Egyptians were famed as "geometers," and as early as the days of Rameses II. (Sesostris of the Greek, 1333-1300 B.c.) there had been made a cadastral survey of the country show ing the rows of pillars which separated the nomes as well as the boundaries of landed estates. It was upon a map based upon such a source that Eratosthenes (276-196 B.c.) measured the distance between Syene and Alexandria which he required for his deter mination of the length of a degree. Ptolemy, who had access to
the famous library of Alexandria was able, no doubt, to use these cadastral plans when compiling his geography. Few specimens of ancient Egyptian cartography have survived. In the Turin museum are preserved two papyri with rough drawings of gold mines established by Sesostris in the Nubian desert. These drawings have been commented upon by S. Birch, F. Chabas, R. J. Lauth and other Egyptologists, and have been referred to as the two most ancient maps in existence. They can, however, hardly be described as maps, while in age they are surpassed by several cartographical clay tablets discovered in Babylonia. On another papyrus in the same museum is depicted the victorious return of Seti I. (1366-1333) from Syria, showing the road from Pelusium to Heroopolis, the canal from the Nile with crocodiles, and a lake (mod. Lake Timsah) with fish in it. Apollonius of Rhodes, who succeeded Eratosthenes as chief librarian at Alexandria (196 B.c.), reports in his Argonautica (iv. 279) that the inhabitants of Colchis whom, like Herodotus (ii. 104) he looks upon as the descendants of Egyptian colonists, preserved, as heirlooms, certain graven tablets (Kbpi3Ecs) on which land and sea, roads and towns were accurately indicated. Eustathius (since i i 6o archbishop of Thessa lonica), in his commentary on Dionysius Periegetes, mentions route-maps which Sesostris caused to be prepared, while Strabo dwells at length upon the wealth of geographical documents to be found in the library of Alexandria.
A cadastral survey for purposes of taxation was already at work in Babylonia during the age of Sargon of Akkad. In the British Museum may be seen a series of clay tablets, circular in shape and dating back to 2300 or 2 100 B.C., which contain sur veys of lands. One of these depicts in a rough way lower Baby lonia encircled by a "salt water river," Oceanus.