LECTURES. 



119 



the same, and which should therefore be watched and studied in like 

 manner. At all events, those solid and unalterable coasts of Maine 

 form a not very considerable part of the entire coast of this country ; 

 and I repeat it, therefore, that in the whole domain of the active com- 

 mercial and navigating nations of the European stock there is no 

 country which so much as this is in want of those documents and 

 records of the past which we call maps and charts. 



Vin. — ON TUB DIFFERENT CLASSES OF MAPS. 



The interesting matters which are subject to geographical distri- 

 bution, and which are at the same time capable of a graphical repre- 

 sentation on maps, are very numerous ; nay, we may say they are 

 innumerable. There is hardly any phenomenon either in the moral or 

 in the physical world which does not undergo some change according 

 to the position of its birthplace on the surface of the globe ; and these 

 changes and their degrees may almost always be expressed by lines, 

 shadings, and colors. Consequently, our geographers now present us 

 with many different classes of maps — physical, hydrographical, poli- 

 tical, historical, moral, administrative, &c. The question, then, 

 arises, whether we should admit into our intended collection all these 

 classes of maps or not. 



The chartographical art originated probably everywhere with tra- 

 vellers by land and sea and their requirements. All the maps which 

 we see mentioned in ancient times were probably more qr less of this 

 kind ; as, for instance, those which the Greeks received from the 

 Phoenicians, and which they improved upon ; so, too, the maps of the 

 Romans, who scarcely mention any other tlian travellers' maps, called 

 '' itmerariajncfa," (painted itineraries,) of which a separate class was 

 formed by the " itmeraria maritima," (marine itineraries.) 



By far the greater part of the maps painted during the middle 

 ages belonged to this class, and more especially to the class of 

 marine maps ; because the greatest map-makers of that time, the 

 Venetians and other Italians, were also the greatest navigators. Thus 

 we see that the art of map-making particularly flourished among the 

 great trading and navigating nations — the Phoenicians, Greeks, and 

 Italians. The different classes of chartographical works for which 

 they had names in the middle ages related all of them more or less 

 exclusively to the hydrography of the sea. Very common, for in- 

 stance, were the so-called '■' portulanos," or indicators of harbors. 

 The '^isolarios" (books of islands) form a very curious sort of com- 

 position, also probably designed for the special use of mariners. In 

 these insularies the authors represented and described all the most 

 important islands of the world, which they separated from their sur- 

 rounding continents. 



Next to travellers and navigators, probably the great conquerors 

 of the world were the first promoters of the art of depicting tlie sur- 

 face of the earth. The desire to know exactly what had been taken 

 possession of, and to see his whole empire as it were at a glance, has 

 been entertained by every conqueror. Sesostris, Alexander the Great, 

 C^ar, the Arabian caliphs, were all accompanied on their marches 



