DEVELOPMENT OF THE CARTOGRAPHY OF AMERICA. 291 



thut the chart could not have been delineated previous to the fact of 

 its discovery. Ou the other hand, it can not be perceived after how 

 long a space of time later on the cartographer executed the draft. If 

 no one of the cartographers who were residing In Italy prior to 1508, 

 or, more correctly speaking, anterior to loll, take any note of America, 

 such a fact should only counsel the exercise of extreme caution. 



Inasmuch as with but few exceptions none of the original drafts 

 have descended to us from remote times, and since the labors of suc- 

 cessive pilots have been collected, for various years, into one general 

 map, tlie difficulty of ascertaining the exact dates has been greatly 

 increased. And yet, in the case of the port entry records, which were 

 made up in the seaport towns, it is more easily established than through 

 the sheets subsequently printed. The execution or engraving of the 

 sheets required considerable time, the printing was often retarded a 

 year or more, and all this must be weighed with the possibility that 

 the latest designs were not always at the disposal of the scientist from 

 whom these charts emanated. It thus happens that such sheets, with- 

 out any date, were begun too i>rematurely. It is well ascertained that 

 designs for the PtolemJius charts (Strasburg, 1503) were six years at 

 least in the hands of the college authorities at St. Die before they were 

 issued. And, moreover, Duke Eenatus (deceased in 1508) had come 

 into possession of the new marine charts of South America and South 

 Africa, which, at a later period, are said to have embellished the 

 Ptolemitus editions, although only in woodcut; and Martin Waldsee- 

 miiller announced, in 1507, in a letter to Amerbach, St. Die, of the 5th 

 of April, that the charts would very soon appear in print. 



The first known globe executed by Nordenskjold presents another 

 illustration of this (facsimile atlas. Table XXXVIII). The origin of 

 this globe, Nordenskjold thinks, may be traced to the years 1510 to 

 1515, while Harrisse has proven by an inscription discovered in Haiti 

 that we should not assign a date earlier than 1518 to the appearance of 

 the globe. 



In the same way the date of a chart of the world, designed by Des- 

 calier, the so-called chart of Henry II, was antedated by a year, until 

 the inscription with the date itself was discovered upon the original. 

 If, in the catalogue ^ of known charts, the figures of the year, in the 

 case of charts without date, are definitely or api>roximately given, these 

 figures should always be received with reserve, though I have always 

 endeavored to follow only the most approved authorities. 



In the study of marine charts another difficulty arises, where it is a 

 question of identification or determination definitely of the old names 

 and reconciling them with the existing local appellations, for only a 

 portion of the names given by the discoverers themselves have been 

 retained up to the present time. Many of them likewise have been 

 modified, mutilated, or supplanted by other appellations even during 



' Catalogue not trauslated. 



