DEVELOPMENT OF THE CARTOGRAPHY OF AMERICA. 295 



Land, the woodcut predominated in the restoration of the charts. It 

 was indeed a unique apparition that in the liomish edition of the 

 Ptolemjius of 1508 a map of the JSTew Workl by Johann lluysch shoukl 

 present itself. Five years later on appeared the Strasburg- rtolemiius, 

 that being the earliest chart of the new continent executed beyond the 

 Alps. In the interim, however, globes carved in wood had made their 

 tirst appearance. 



Notwithstanding the inferiority and brittle nature of the materials 

 used in the reduplication of charts, Germany won from the tirst an 

 acknowledged supremacy in the delineation of the contours of trans- 

 atlantic regions, and it continued to exercise this inHuence, uncon- 

 tested, for a full half century. The reason for this is a very remarkable 

 one. A small Vosges town, St. Die, tlie seat of the Lothringen Duke 

 Renatus, who died in 1508, acquired the foremost prominence in the 

 development of the cartography of America. Portuguese marine charts 

 and the reports of the four sea voyages of Amerigo A'espucci possibly 

 gave the first impulse to this art in 1506. The news brought to the 

 Duke was quickly appreciated in the halls of the G-ymnasium College, 

 to which VValther Lud, Ringmann, and Waldseemiiller were attached. 

 The four marine voyages, in a Latin version, soon appeared, accom- 

 panied by a " Cosmographiai introductio," or i^reliminary initiation in 

 the principles of cosmographic science, by Waldseemiiller, in which 

 the author, as is well known, in 1507 proposed the name America for 

 the new continent. At the same time it was decided to convert the 

 marine charts, which had just reached the Duke, into a fresh edition of 

 the PtoIemJius. The restoration of the charts was placed in the hands 

 of Waldseemiiller, but after many delays the work at length appeared 

 in 1513. How well this edition succeeded may be recognized from the 

 ftict that in 1520 a second impression became necessary, and the 

 editions of 1522 and 1525, imitations of the charts of the same locality, 

 and even tbe Ptolemiius editions of Lyons in 1535, and of Vienna in 

 15-41, were reproductions of the charts of Waldseemiiller. 



St. Die, however, soon lost its lu'ominence after the departure of 

 Waldseemiiller. His Ptolemiius certainly appeared in Strasburg. 

 Nuremberg succeeded Strasburg with the globe of Schiiner, and thus 

 an interest in cosmographic works extended more and more over Ger- 

 man territory until its acme was reached at the close of the era in the 

 Netherlands and on the Lower Rhine in the writings of Mercator. 



If we now take a retrospective glance at the period when German 

 cosmographers dominated in cartographic designs, from 1508 to 15G9, 

 several tyi>es, i)artly contemporary and partly subsequent, reveal 

 themselves, and acquire prominence in the representation of the 

 newly discovered regions of the globe. 



In the interval of time here indicated seven different types may be 

 distinguished: 



(1) Johann Ruysch, 1508. In North America the well-known coun- 

 tries of Greenland, Labrador, and Baccalaos (Newfoundland) are 



