4 o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



some danger. When the map of Europe appeared in 1554, with 

 Ptolemy's errors corrected and the continent shown in something 

 like its real extent and proportions, the learned of all countries, ac- 

 cording to Ghymmius, pronounced such extravagant eulogies upon it 

 that one might have thought that no such perfect work had ever 

 before seen the light. A single copy of his great " Mappa Monde " 

 exists in the Bibliotheque Imperiale of Paris. It is two metres by 

 one metre thirty-two centimetres, or about six feet and a half by four 

 feet, in dimensions, and shows the world from 80 north to 66 30' 

 south. It includes three continents or land-masses the Old World, 

 America, and a southern continent, which Mercator conceived to be 

 necessary to the balancing of the globe, but which had not yet been 

 found, and which is only imperfectly represented by Australia and 

 the larger islands and the south polar lands. The regions around the 

 pole could not be given, on account of the exaggeration of the degrees 

 on the plane projection, so a special supplementary map was provided 

 for them. As not much was known about these regions, not much 

 could be shown, and the little that could be, with no great accuracy. 

 Behring Strait had not yet assumed definite form in the minds of ge- 

 ographers, but Mercator, thinking there ought to be some such body 

 in that region, marked one on the map. In the main map also, some 

 curious features were marked in the islands of the ocean, on the word 

 of travelers, that have not yet been verified. 



The "Atlas" was published in 1595, although several of the maps 

 had already been published separately, that of France in 1585, and the 

 map of Europe in 1572. Larger and smaller forms of the work were 

 published in Latin, French, German, Flemish, and Turkish, in at least 

 fifty editions. The more important editions were published by Hon- 

 dius, at Amsterdam. That of 1623 had one hundred and fifty-six 

 maps, and the edition of 1630 was prefaced by a biography of Merca- 

 tor, by Gautier Ghymm (Ghymmius). This work included accounts 

 of the political and the physical geography of the countries de- 

 scribed. 



To the uniform edition of his maps, Mercator prefixed an essay, 

 "De creatione ac fabrica mundi" ("Concerning the Creation and 

 Structure of the World "), the theological doctrines of which excited 

 some question. But Van Raemdonck, his admiring biographer, says 

 of it : " We have hardly been able to disengage ourself from the read- 

 ing of it, so much does it attach, lead on, and transport us. In turn- 

 ing over those noble and pious pages, we might have thought we were 

 reading a sacred canticle, a real hymn to the Lord. Invocation of di- 

 vinity, holiness of purpose, grandeur of conceptions and ideas, sublime 

 style, and enthusiasm all are there and help to make us believe, with 

 Dr. Solenander, that Mercator speaks in this book as an inspired 

 prophet, as one who has been initiated by God himself into the mys- 

 tery of the origin of the world." 



