DEVELOPMENT OF THE CARTOGRAPHY OF AMERICA. 283 



cliart of 1380 (?) is included in the appended list,i for the reason that 

 after its publication in tlie year 1558, not merely did the Italian Ptole- 

 milus editions, but even Mercator, as well, follow its deUneation of the 

 northern regions. 



THE jMARTNE charts. 



The art of designing marine charts originated with the Italians. 

 When the Portuguese Prince Henry began his discoveries he sought 

 to obtain Italians for his enterprises. So likewise in chart design, or 

 drafts, Itahans became the instructors of the Portuguese, and with the 

 latter the Basques appeared, as skillful mariners and cartographers. 

 Not until toward the middle of the sixteenth century did nautical car- 

 tography find its entrance into France. It did not reach either Eng- 

 land or Germany at the epoch of the great discoveries. But in Spain, 

 to which is due the most ancient cartography of the most important 

 regions in America, guidance and enlightenment were derived from 

 Italians, Basques, and Portuguese. And thus the material for Ameri- 

 can cartography consists of Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and more 

 recently of French charts, or coast pilots. The language of these charts 

 is exclusively Romanish. 



But, unfortunately, original drafts are hardly accessible. Unfortu- 

 nately, also, most of the track charts no longer exist. "What, in the 

 lapse of time, has been preserved from shipwreck, or the hands of the 

 gold-beaters, is as yet not fully ascertained, and very little indeed has 

 been described" (Harrisse, Cabot, p. 130). As often as pictures of the 

 uprising New World vary in the first decades, just so often do the charts 

 become antiquated and dangerous as guides. It therefore became 

 necessary from considerations of prudence or utility to discard or 

 destroy the more ancient. Thus it happens that neither in Spain nor 

 in Portugal is there to be found a chart of America for the first fifteen 

 years of the sixteenth century, with the exception of that oldest map 

 of the world, which was recovered from France, and on which the New 

 World is represented— the noted chart of the Basque pilot Juan de 

 la Cosa. The earliest charts that have been preserved, next to that of 

 Cosa, the marine charts of Canario and Cantero, and that of Kunst- 

 mann in his atlas of published sheets, Nos. 2 and 3, are to be found in 

 the collections of Italy, France, and Germany. And even these, col- 

 lectively, are no longer original, but imitations and compilations 

 collectetl from various State archives. And although Cosa, in the 

 delineation of America, has pronounced his work as original, his chart 

 upon the whole is merely a compilation. 



The elaborate, and in many respects incisive criticism which Har- 

 risse- above all others, has devoted to the subject, has enabled us, in 



iList not translated. 



2'- Names, wlieu methodically interrogated, yield very useful results, wldcli reach 

 even distant questions." (Harrisse, Disc, of N. America, p. 325.) 



