318 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



map of Mercator of 1561» that the more important maps were generally 

 ■engraved. Many of these earh' maps, both manuscript and printed, are 

 remarkable for the great beauty of their execution, and, in the case of 

 those in manuscript, for the beauty of their colouring and elaborateness 

 •of their illumination. Blank spaces were rilled with historical scenes, 

 animals and other natural productions supposed to live in the different 

 •countries, and this custom prevailed down to the time of Champlain. 

 These early maps showed, also, the many different ways in which the 

 makers attempted to overcome the difficulty of correctly representing a 

 ^lobe upon a fiat surface, and the study of these methods alone is an 

 extensive and difficult one ; amongst them the most important is the 

 projection of Mercator. still so widelv used. Along with the improve- 

 înents in map-drawing wont advances in methods of determining longi- 

 tudes and latitudes ; tinally came the era of trigonometrical surveys, giving 

 the possibility of the formation of maps of perfect exactness. With the 

 improvements in engraving, removal of government restrictions and freer 

 ■communication between iiations, map-making rapidl}^ advanced, as it has 

 steadily to the present. In the last century under Delisle, Bellin and D'An- 

 ville the French were the leaders in map-making, and they were aided by 

 the wise policy of their government, which not only established a central 

 ■depository for maps, but sent out expeditions for the gathering of carto 

 graphical data. What map making is to day it is not necessary to inform 

 my readers. 



->'. On the Proper Spirit of Study of Old Maps. 



Cartography ^ is essentially a subject requiring the scientific induc- 

 tive spirit for its investigation. Its successful p\irsuit demands minute 

 observation of all obtainable facts, the grouping of these together accord- 

 ing to the degrees of their likeness and unlikeness, and deduction there- 

 from of what is common and essential, and what individual and unim- 

 portant. It requires critical judgment to weigh evidence and esti- 

 mate what is logically proven, what is ])vobable, and what is only ])0s- 

 fiibly true. Even a certain kind of exj>eriment has here its place, the kind 

 which has to do with the testing of hypotheses. It is, therefore, essential 

 that one shall not allow preconceived notions to unbalance his judg- 

 ment, nor local pride to lead him unconsciously to distort facts or evid- 

 ence to the magnification of his own subject or locality. Winsor has 

 said : "Nothing is more seductive than to let a spirit of dogmatism 

 <lirect in the interpretation of early maps, and there is no field of research 

 in which predisposition to belief may lead one so wrongly.^" The early 



1 This word i.s at present used in difterent senses— sometimes as equivalent for 

 maps to bibliography for books, sometimes for their scientitic study, for which 

 cartology would be better, sometimes even for map-making. A diflercntiation of the 

 term is desirable. 



2 America, IV. 'i^i. 



