ANTIPODAL SOUTHERN CONTINENT. 459 



fetta's ])ossible share in the dissemination of these charts is 

 npheld by the agreement ])etween his written descrijjtions 

 and the iUuminations on the Harleyan Map. 



The date of the niappemonde of Jean Cossin, 1570, over- 

 laps that of Gerardns Mei'cator's Nova et aiicta terrue 

 descriptio, the engraving of which was finished in August, 

 1569. The distinguishing feature in this map was the new 

 projection devised by the engraver, which develops the degrees 

 of latitude in a ratio proportional with the increase in the 

 degrees of longitude. Mercator himself said that his projec- 

 tion lacked mathematical justification, but that it was the only 

 method by which the sphere could be reduced to a plane 

 projection, and that it would be convenient for navigators. 

 The navigators, however, were slow to avail themselves of 

 new and untried methods, and despised a ma}) which dis- 

 played coasts that were unknown to them, and which 

 subordinated nautical details to a theoretical tout ensemble. 

 Mercator had very clear and definite views on the subject of 

 a southern continent. His biographer, Gualterus Gymniis, 

 says that he divided the world into three continents, one of 

 which consisted of Asia, Africa, and Europe, the other was 

 India ]Nfo\a or Occidentalis, or America, and of the third, 

 altliough he was not ignorant of the fact that it was still 

 unknown, yet he affirmed that he coukl demonstrate the 

 existence by solid reasons, and that it was not inferior to the 

 other two in size and weight, for, if it were, the globe could 

 not remain stable with resi)ect to its equilibrium. {Gymniis, 

 Vitn Mercatoris.) If we turn to the map of 1569 for the 

 representation of this theory, (traceable also in his world- 

 map of 1538) we find the whole Southern Ocean awantino- 

 and its place approximately occupied by a southern con- 

 tinent. Beginning from the Terra del Fuego, which is 

 made a part of it, the Terra Atistralis extends in a north- 

 westerly direction towards New Guinea, with which it forms 

 a strait, then trends S.W., W., and N., so forming a oulf 

 in which lie the islands of Java Minor and Petan, followed 

 by a promontory inscribed with the names Maletur, Lucach, 

 and Beach, a corrupted form of Lucach. I have explained 

 how these names, occurring in the Book of Marco Polo, were 

 erroneously placed to the south of Java. But the promon- 

 tary on which they occur, the adjacent gulf to the east of it, 

 aud the coast-line thence to the Straits of Magellan, show 

 another influence — the same influence that produced the Java 

 Maior of the Dieppe school of hydrography. To the west 



