58 WISCONSIN AGRICULTURE. 



The committee deem it not inappropriate here to insert an 

 essay on Maps and Map making, prepared mostly from materi- 

 als furnished by Mr. Colton. 



The first Map of the world was constructed by Anaximander, 

 disciple of Tliales, B. C. 568. According to Herodotus, this was 

 drawn on brass or copper, and contained the entire circumference 

 of the whole vwrld, the sea and all the rivers. The theory of this 

 philosopher was that the earth was cylindrical ; others supposed 

 it to be a plane ; the true figure of the earth was not known in 

 ancient times. Erotasthenes of Alexandria, B. C. 245, was the 

 first to reduce geography to a regular system, by the introduc- 

 tion of parallels of latitude into Maps ; and Hipparchus of Rhodes 

 was the first to introduce lines of Meridians ; his prime meridian 

 being the Fortunate Isles, or Canaries, which were then sup- 

 posed to be the Western border of the earth. The crude theories 

 respecting the shape of the earth and its relations to the Uni- 

 verse up to the days of Copernicus, Galileo and Newton, greatly 

 retarded the progress of the science : and on this account all the 

 productions of ancient, are of no use to modern geography ; and 

 hence also they can only be quoted as curiosities in the history 

 of geographical delineation. Maps now, however, became more 

 authentic and assumed gradually a form at once scientific and 

 reliable. The first sea chart was brought to England by Bar- 

 tholomew Columbus, A. D. 1489, to illustrate his brother's 

 theory respecting a Western Continent. The earliest map of 

 England was engraved by George Lily in 1520. Mercator's 

 Chart, on which the world is drawn a plane, was invented in 

 1556. Subsequent discoveries have only added to our know- 

 ledge of the earth's topography, and filled up the outline science 

 had already demarked. 



Map printing from wood, copper, steel, etc., is of comparatively 

 recent date. Prints from wood were first produced about the 

 year 1400; copper plates were used 50 years la'.er; lithographic 

 printing was introduced in 1789 ; and steel-plate prmting in 

 1817. In still later times the cerographs of Morse, and various 

 other kinds of printing from type metal have come into use. 

 But of all recent useful inventions the most useful is that of 



