480 



THE POPULAR SCIJSNCE MONTHLY. 



forgotten calculated to give the spectator an idea of the state of the 

 region, even to the stones and the scattered trees along the roads." 

 This description is sufficient to show that the Egyptians knew the 

 value of maps, and that they made and used them. These gold-mines 

 were worked in the reign of Rameses II., and if this map was made at 

 that period, as from the description given of it would seem to be the 

 fact, then it is the oldest map known. 



It was very different, however, with their neighbors, the Phoeni- 

 cians. They were the great maritime nation of antiquity, making con- 

 stant voyages along the coasts of the Mediterranean on either side, and 

 along the Avestern coast of Europe, as far as Great Britain, and possibly 

 farther. The outlines of a coast once seen would, it is true, be suffi- 

 ciently preserved in the memory for the practical purposes of naviga- 

 tion ; but a people who had extended their voyages so far, who had 

 established so many colonies, and to whom is attributed the invention 

 of the alphabet, would naturally be led to the construction of charts. 



Fig. 2.— Map op Hecat^us ,b. c. 500. 



from their utility, as well as maps to give some general idea of the 

 world, of which they knew more than any other people. A jealous 

 commercial policy kept them from imparting their knowledge to oth- 

 ers, so that we do not know whether they had maps or charts ; which 

 is not remarkable, as we know, in fact, so little respecting them. 



It is from the Greeks that we get our earliest knowledge of geo- 

 graphical maps. The first information we have upon the subject is 

 from passages in Herodotus and Strabo. Strabo says that Anaximan- 

 der, who was born b. c. 612, was the first who represented the world upon 

 a map. Diogenes Laertes ascribed to him the invention of geographi- 

 cal maps, and also of the gnomon. But this he probably introduced 

 into Greece, as it was in earlier use among the Chaldeans. Herodotus 

 says that Aristagoras, when he went (504 b. c.) to Cleomenes, the King 

 of Sparta, to induce him to invade Persia, produced before the Spar- 

 tan king " a bronze tablet, upon which the whole circuit of the earth 

 was engraved, with all its seas and rivers." 



Hecatseus, who lived in the same century with Anaximander, is be- 



