History of Cartography

No reasonable fault can be found with the marine surveyors of this period, but the scientific cartographers allowed themselves too frequently to be influenced by Ptolemaic traditions. Any cartographer of the period in regions the successful delineation of which depended upon an intelligent interpretation of itineraries, and of information collected by recent travellers, is generally found to fail utterly.

Columbus, trusting to Toscanelli's misleading chart, looked upon the countries discovered by him as belonging to eastern Asia, a view still shared about i5o7 by his brother Bartolomeo. Waldseemuller (1507) was the first to separate America and Asia by an ocean of considerable width, but J. Ruysch (1508) returns to the old idea, and even joins Greenland (Gruenlant) to eastern Asia.

Globes,

both celestial and terrestrial, were popular after the discovery of America. They were included among the scientific apparatus of ships and of educational establishments. Columbus and Magellan had such globes, those of the latter produced by P. Reinel (1519), and Conrad Celtes tells us that he illustrated his lectures at the University of Vienna with the help of globes 0500. Since 1507, in which year Waldseerni.iller published a small globe of a diameter of uomm., covered with printed seg ments or gores, this cheap and expeditious method has come into general use. Waldseemiiller constructed his gores graphically. A. Durer (1525) and Hen. Loriti Glareanus (1527) were the first who dealt scientifically with the principles of their construction.

Among engraved globes, one of the most interesting is that which was discovered by R. M. Hunt in Paris, and is now in the Lenox Library, New York (fig. 1o). Its diameter is only 41in.

Mercator and His Successors.—Of Gerhard Kremer (1512– 94) the earliest works are a map of Palestine (i537), a map of the world on a double heart-shaped projection (1525), and a topo graphical map of Flanders based upon his own surveys (1540), a pair of globes (1541, diam. 12omm.), and a large map of Europe which has been praised deservedly for its accuracy He is best known by his marine chart (1569) (fig. r r) and his atlas. The projection of the former may have been suggested by W. Pirkheimer's note in his edition of Ptolemy (1525). Mercator constructed it graphically, the mathematical principles under lying it being first explained by E. Wright (1594). The "Atlas" was only published after Mercator's death, in 1595• It only con tained nine maps, but after the plates had been sold to Jodocus (Jesse) Hondius the number of maps was rapidly increased, although Mercator's name was retained. Mercator's maps are

carefully engraved on copper. Latin letters are used through out ; the miniatures of older maps are superseded by symbols, and in the better-known countries the maps are fairly correct, but they fail lamentably in regions of imperfect information.

Even before Mercator's death, Antwerp and Amsterdam had become great centres of cartographic activity, and they main tained their pre-eminence until the beginning of the 18th century. Lucas Janszon Waghenaer (Aurigarius) of Enkhuizen published the first edition of his Spiegel der Zeevaart (Mariners' Mirror) at Leiden in 1585. It was the first collection of marine maps, lived through many editions, was issued in several languages and be came known as Charettier and Waggoner. Jodocus Hondius was mentioned as purchaser of Mercator's plates. In 16o8 Hondius published a map of the world in 12 sheets, on Mercator's projec tion. Only one copy is known and this is in the possession of the Royal Geographical Society. E. Heawood has written a memoir on this map (1927). The business founded by him about 5602 was continued by his sons, his son-in-law, Jan Janszon (Jansonius) and others. Another map firm was established at Amsterdam in 1612 by Willem Janszon Blaeu (1571-1638), a friend of Tycho Brahe, from 1633 "mapmaker" of the States-General, and a man of scientific culture. He was succeeded by his son Jan (d. 1673) and grandson Cornelius, and before the end of the century turned out a Zee-Spiegel of 108 charts (1623).

In France, in the meantime, an arc of the meridian had been measured (1669-7o) by Jean Picard, numerous longitudes had been observed between 1672 and 1680 by the same, and by Phil. de Lahire (d. 1719), and these were utilized in a Carte de France "as corrected from the observations of the members of the Academy of Sciences" (1666-1699), in a map of the world (1694) by D. Cassini, as also in Le Neptune Francois (1693) with con tributions by Pene, D. Cassini and others. These corrected longi tudes were not yet available for the maps produced by Nicolas Sanson of Abbeville, since 1627. The cartographical establishment founded by him in that year was carried on after his death in 1667 by his sons, his son-in-law, P. Duval (d. 1683) and his grand son Robert du Vaugondy (d. 1766).