In no other country of Europe was there at the close of the 16th century a geographical establishment capable of competing with the Dutch towns or with Sanson, but the number of those who produced maps, in many instances based upon original sur veys, was large.
The first maps illustrating the variation of the compass were published by Chris. Burrus (d. 1632) and Athanasius Kircher (Magnes, Rome, 1643), and maps of the ocean and tidal currents by the latter in his Mundus subterraneus (1665). Edmund Halley, the astronomer, compiled the first variation chart of scientific value (1683), as also a chart of the winds (1686).
The Eighteenth Century.—It was no mere accident which enabled France to enjoy a pre-eminence in cartographic work during the greater part of the 18th century. Not only had French men of science and scientific travellers done excellent work as explorers in different parts of the world, but France could also boast of two men, Guillaume Delisle and J. B. Bourguignon d'An ville, able to utilize in the compilation of their maps the informa tion they acquired.
Delisle (1675-1726) published 98 maps, and although as works of art they were inferior to the maps of certain contemporaries, they were far superior to them in scientific value. On one of his earliest maps compiled under advice of his father Claude (1700), he gave the Mediterranean its true longitudinal extension of 41°. It was Delisle who assumed the meridian of Ferro, which had been imposed upon French navigators by royal order to lie exactly 20° to the west of Paris. The work of reform was carried further by B. D'Anville (1697-1782). Altogether he published 211 maps, of which 66 are included in his Atlas General (1737– 8o) ; he swept away the fanciful lakes from off the face of Africa, thus forcibly bringing home to us the poverty of our knowl edge, delineated the Chinese empire in accordance with the map based on the surveys conducted during the reign of the emperor Kanghi, with the aid of Jesuit missionaries, and published in 1718; boldly refused to believe in the existence of an Antarctic continent covering half the southern hemisphere, and always brought a sound judgment to bear upon the materials which the ever-increasing number of travellers placed at his disposal. Among other French works of importance deserving notice are Le Nep tune oriental of Mannevillette and more especially the Carte geometrique de la France, which is based upon surveys carried on (1744-83) by Cesar Francois Cassini de Thury and his son Dominique de Cassini. It is on a transversal cylindrical (rec
tangular) projection devised by Jacques Cassini (d. 1746). The hills are shown in rough hachures.
England, which had entered upon a career of naval conquest and scientific exploration, had reason to be proud of J. F. W. Desbarres, Atlantic Neptune a North American pilot (1779), who first made known the naval surveys of Capt. Cook and of others; and Tho. Jefferys's West Indian and American Atlases (1775, 1778). James Rennell (1742-183o), who was sur veyor-general of Bengal, published the Bengal Atlas (1781). Aaron Arrowsmith, who came to London in 1778, and his suc cessors constitute the glory of the older school of cartographers. His nephew John died in 1873.
In Germany J. B. Homann (d. 1724) founded a geographical establishment in 1702, which depended at first upon copies of British and French maps, but in course of time published also original maps such as J. M. Hase's Africa (1727) and Tobias Meyer's Mappa critica of Germany (178o), J. T. Giissfeld's map of Brandenburg (1773), John Majer's Wiirttemburg (17Io) and J. C. Muller's Bavaria, both based on trigonometrical surveys. Col. Schmettau's excellent survey of the country to the west of the Weser (1767-87) was never published. Switzerland and other European states were worthily represented. Charts illustrating the variation of the compass and of magnetic "dip" were pub lished by E. Dunn (1776) and J. C. Wiffe (1768). Map pro jections were dealt with by two eminent mathematicians, J. H. Lambert (1772) and Leonh. Euler (1777).
On the maps of Delisle and d'Anville the ground is still repre sented by "molehills." Hachures of a rude nature first made their appearance on David Vivier's map of the environs of Paris and on Cassini's Carte de :a France. Contour lines (isobaths) were introduced for the first time on a chart of the Merwede by M. S. Cruquius (1728), and on a chart of the English Channel by Phil. Buache (1737). J. G. Lehmann (1783) based his hill shading or hachuring upon these horizontal contours.