+ o4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Mitscherlich, and De SSnarmont. It is now time for it, gathering up 

 the scattered results it has collected, and adding new conquests to 

 them, to enter resolutely into the biological period. Translated for 

 the Popular Science Monthly from the Revue Scientijique. 



---- 



SKETCH OF GERARD MERCATOR. 



r^\ ERARD MERCATOR, the distinguished geographer and au- 

 \JT thor of the system of map-drawing which bears his name, was 

 born at Rupelmonde, Flanders, March 5, 1512, and died at Duisburg, 

 December 2, 1594. The name by which he is known, Mercator, is a 

 translation into Latin of his real name, which is given by one authority 

 as Kaufmann, by others as Kramer, or De Cremer, all meaning mer- 

 chant or trader. He was first sent to school at Bois-le-Duc, under 

 Macropedius, but afterward went to Louvain, where he applied him- 

 self to the study of philosophy and mathematics so earnestly that he 

 was prone to let his days pass without eating and his nights without 

 sleeping, and had to be reminded that those duties should be attended 

 to. Of the nature and influence of his studies at Louvain an interest- 

 ing incident is related by his biographer, Yan Raemdonck (" Gerard 

 Mercator, sa Vie et ses CEuvres "), which also illustrates a striking 

 trait of his character. The Bible to him was a book of authority, 

 and he had conceived a high respect and formed a fixed attachment 

 for its text. He had also been taught the physics of Aristotle, which 

 then prevailed in all the schools. His studies in the book of Genesis 

 soon showed him that there were many discrepancies between the cos- 

 mogony of Moses and the teachings of Aristotle and other accepted 

 philosophers ; thus a dilemma was presented to him. He would not 

 give up his Bible ; must he give up Aristotle ? To relieve himself 

 from his embarrassment, he took a course, says Van Raemdonck, 

 " that was as Christian as it was logical. Believing in the inspiration 

 of the Bible, and convinced of man's fallibility, he ventured to doubt 

 the orthodoxy of the philosophers, resolved to revise all his accepted 

 opinions, and, with his reason as his only guide, undertook to pene- 

 trate for himself the mysteries of Nature." He went to work to con- 

 struct a new cosmogony. In order to escape critical annoyance, he 

 left Louvain and retired to Antwerp, where he hired rooms and gave 

 himself up to his investigations on this subject. There he framed 

 a cosmogony which agreed at once with his reason and with the Bible. 

 When he returned to Louvain, the doctors of the university, shocked 

 at his boldness in questioning what was almost universally received, 

 were ready to attack his new doctrines, anticipating their immediate 

 publication. But he kept his own counsel, and held his cosmogony in 



