72 Staten Island Association of Arts and Sciences 



and the other traced the path of the ship. The manner in which 

 the maps of the time were produced may be inferred from the 

 appointment by public decree in 1633 of William Blaeu as cartog- 

 rapher to the States General; it was his duty to examine the 

 ships' logs and so amend the maps. The Dutch cartographers 

 were given more to embellishing their maps with fine engraving 

 than to accurate representation, and with the seventeenth century 

 their influence disappeared. 



The maps presented herewith are a few that are original or 

 have special interest, of the many produced since October 4, 

 1609, when Juet, one of Hudson's company, records that " Wee 

 came out also of the great mouth of the great river." On 

 account of the importance of this port and the location of Staten 

 Island in relation thereto, at " the great mouth of the great 

 river " perhaps quite as many maps have been made of it as of 

 any other part of our coast. A great many Dutch charts and 

 atlases of the seventeenth century were published, in some of 

 which Staten Island took strange shapes and in few was it 

 represented with any degree of accuracy. 



In the following century most of the maps were of English 

 origin and the accuracy of the representation had greatly im- 

 proved as can be readily seen from those selected. 



Acknowledgment is here made to the Librarian of the Lenox 

 Branch of the New York Public Library for permission to 

 photograph maps numbered 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, and 15, 

 as well as for assistance rendered ; to the United States Coast and 

 Geodetic Survey for map number 16; and to Mr. E. B. Johnson 

 for the photographic work. 



No. 1. A Copy of Part of the Map of "that Province" 

 in America made for James I, King of England, in 



,l6lO, AND SENT TO PHILIP III, KlNG OF SPAIN, BY VeLASCO, 



Ambassador of Spain, to England, in His Letter of 

 March 22, 161 1. 

 ■ The letter reads in. part as follows : 



