336 LECTURES. 



we are accustomed to separate from their appropriate temples, palaces, 

 churches, bridges, &c., without scruple, though only capable of being 

 fully appreciated under their original and local associations. 



Furthermore, it may be observed, that numberless maps have been 

 added to books, with a professed intention of illustrating and being 

 used in connexion with them, without possessing any real adaptation. 

 Travellers have embellished their reports with maps which ought to 

 have shown us their routes or illustrated the regions traversed, but 

 which, to our great regret, have neither served the one nor the other 

 purpose. We find sometimes in the maps certain descriptions and 

 names, and in the reports quite unlike descriptions and quite different 

 names. The same thing has often been done by historians, who have 

 related one thing in their text and depicted another on their maps. 

 In olden times many ancient maps of the world were added to 

 books which contain no allusion whatever to the maps ; for instance, 

 to Bibles, to religious treatises, to old chronicles of some province or 

 city, &c. 



In all such cases, where the connexion of the maps with the works 

 is merely a casual one, we may without scruple separate them. The 

 maps will become more intelligible and useful by being admitted into 

 our collection and finding themselves surrounded there by old rela- 

 tions and associates. The shortest notice which we may add to our 

 copy or detached sheet, about the place or book from which it was 

 taken, will sometimes suffice to make amends for the whole loss sus- 

 tained in the separation. 



In cutting up atlases and other collective works of .maps and dis- 

 tributing them through our collection, it is true, we dissolve somo- 

 times a beautiful piece of art into its elements, and, at the same time, 

 we deprive the isolated maps, to a certain extent, of that light which 

 they receive when they are considered in connexion with those collec- 

 tive works. 



In old portulanos, for instance, the title-page and introduction 

 contain sometimes very curious, valuable, and characteristic hints 

 and materials respecting the geographical ideas which presided at 

 the construction of the work. Nay, the very frame-work and tlie 

 covers of these portulanos contain paintings and allusions for illus- 

 trating the spirit of the times in which they were composed. Besides, 

 in taking the whole portulano, or atlas, and comparing each part with 

 the other, we learn much that will serve for deciphering the hand- 

 writing and for better understanding the different signs made use of. 



As a counterpoise to these objections, it should be considered that 

 if our maps lose some elements of intelligibility by being separated 

 from their old companions, they receive quite a neiv light from those 

 ivith lohich we associate them. If a portulano by being cut up loses 

 something as an artistic work, it may be greatly enhanced by our 

 process in scientific and /wsfom- importance ; and then that light which 

 the maps of the same work threw upon each other in their original 

 connexion need not be quite lost by their separation. By means of 

 notes, or the catalogue, it will not be difficult to point out the region 

 of the collection where the related maps can be found and reference 

 be had to them. 



