Phillips.] J-*^ [March 19, 



All Account of Two Maps of America Published Bespeetively in tJie Years 

 1550 and 1555. By Henry Phillips, Jr., A.M. 



{Bead before the American Philosophical Society, March 19, 1880.) 



In the Gosmographia Universalis of Sebastian Munster, publislied at 

 Basle, in 1550, there occurs a large two page map of the New World which 

 is so quaint, so singularly inaccurate, yet with all its faults so suggestive 

 that a description cannot fail to be of interest to all who care to retrace the 

 early history of our country. 



The copy of Munster which is in the library of our Society is the German 

 edition of 1563, but contains the same illustrations and maps that occur in 

 the earliest copies of the work. As reprints took place, no changes seem 

 to have been made in the letter-press, and certainly no alterations were 

 effected in the charts and engravings. 



North and South America are represented as a large island joined to- 

 gether, where Central America now exists, by a strip of land. All the upper 

 boundary of North America is water. The coast line from what is now 

 called Labrador and New Brunswick to the Gulf of Mexico is not badly 

 outlined ; Canada receives the name of Francisca ; Yucatan is figured ;is 

 a large island directly west of Cuba, which latter lies immediately to the 

 south of the peninsula now known as Florida. The Tortugas islands are 

 thrown far into the bosom of the Gulf of Mexico, to which body of water 

 no name is assigned. Mexico itself appears as Chamaho, and a small 

 island, Panuco, is represented near this country, off the mouth of a large 

 river. Jamaica, spelled Jamica, lies to the south of Cuba ; Hispaniola, 

 directly to the east. 



At the point where South America is joined to the Northern Continent 

 is a country which bears the name of Parias, marked, " abundat auro et 

 margaritis. ' ' The configuration of Mexico is but poorly preserved, and the 

 Pacific coast is dotted with random indentations of rivers and bays. Lower 

 California does not appear, nor j'et the Gulf which separates it from 

 Mexico.* 



Avery large body of water, a continuation of that which forms the bound- 

 ary of the Northern Continent, in shape and position not unlike to Hudson's 

 Bay, stretches far down to within a short distance from the sea-coast, no 

 great way off from the present site of New York city, New York. Proba- 

 bly this was placed upon the map in conformity with Indian reports of vast 

 interior bodies of water, confusing the Great Lakes of the Northwest, with 

 Hudson's Bay. 



The peninsula now known as Florida is quite correctly drawn, although 

 it does not bear any name, but a region of country corresponding 



* According to Humboldt, Lower California had been recognized as a penin- 

 sula as early as 1539-11. 



