XIII.] OLD MAPS OF ASIA. 517 



to the middle of the sixteenth century, are based to a greater or 

 less extent on interpretations of the accounts of Herodotus, 

 Phny, and Marco Polo. When they do not surround the whole 

 Indian Ocean with land, they give to Asia a much less extent 

 in the north and east than it actually possesses, make the land 

 in this direction completely bounded by sea, and delineate two 

 lieadlands projecting towards the north from the mainland. To 

 tliese they give the names Promontorium. Scythicum and Tahin, 

 and they besides place in the neighbourhood of the north coast 

 a large island to which they give the name that already occurs 

 in Pliny, Insula Tmzata, which reminds us, jDerhaps by an 

 accidental resemblance of sound, of the name of the river and 

 bay, Tas, between the Ob and the Yenisej. Finally, the borders 

 of the maps are often adorned with pictures of wonderfully 

 formed men, whose dwellings the hunters placed in those 

 regions, the names being at the same time given of a larger 

 or smaller number of jDeoples and cities mentioned by Marco 

 Polo. 



On the whole, the voyages of the Portuguese to India and 

 the Eastern archipelago, the discovery of America and the 

 first circumnavigation of the globe, exerted little influence on the 

 current ideas regarding the geograjohy of North Asia. A new 

 })eriod in respect of our knowledge of this part of the old world 

 first began with the publication of Heebeestein's lierum 

 Moscoviticarum Commentarii, Vindobonse 1549.^ This work has 

 annexed to "it a map A\ath the title " Moscovia Sigismundi 

 liberi baronis in Herberstein Neiperg et Gutnhag. Anno 

 MDXLix. Hanc tabulam absolvit Aug. Hiesfogel Viennse 

 Austrise cum gra. et privi. imp.," ^ which indeed embraces only. 

 a small part of Siberia, but shows that a knowledge of North 

 Russia now began to be based on actual observations. A large 

 gulf, marked with the name Mare Glaciale (the present White 

 !Sea) here projects into the north coast of Russia; from the 



1 See note at page 45, for an account of von Herberstein and his 

 works. 



2 As the copy of the o-riginal map tO' which I have had access, being 

 coloured, is unsuitable for photo-lithographing, I give here instead a photo- 

 litliographic reproduction of the map in tlie ItaUan edition printed in 1550. 

 Tlie map itself is unchanged in any essential particular, but the drawing 

 and engrav'ing are better. There is, besides, a still older majD of Russia in 

 the first edition of Sebastian IManster's Cosinoijraphia Umversalis. I have 

 not had access to this edition, but have had to the third edition of the same 

 work printed at Basel in 1550. A very incomplete map of Paissia engraved 

 on wood, on which, however, the Obi and the " Sybir " are to be found, is 

 inserted in this work at page 910. The Dwina here falls not into the White 

 Sea but into the Gulf of Finland, through a lake to which the name Ladoga 

 is now given ; places like Astracan, Asof, Yiborg, Calmahori (Kolmogor), 

 Solowki (Solovets), &c., are indicated pretty correctly, and in the White Sea 

 there is to be seen a very faithful representation of a walrus swimming. 



