124 MAPS AND THEIR MAKERS 



his printing house and all his engraved plates were totally 

 destroyed by fire. 



Such men, in addition to being draughtsmen and carto- 

 graphers, were also engravers and publishers and therefore 

 catered for the informed public as well as for pilots. Reference 

 has already been made to their activities as compilers and 

 publishers of atlases. To conclude this brief sketch of the 

 golden age of Dutch cartography something must be said 

 of another characteristic feature of their work, the production 

 of large maps of the world, suitable for mounting as wall 

 maps. 



The lead in this was taken by Petrus Plancius, who estab- 

 lished a type which in many respects persisted throughout the 

 period. In 1592 at the outset of his career as a cartographer he 

 published a world map in eighteen sheets, with the con- 

 siderable overall dimensions of 146x214 cms. This was based 

 on two principal sources, Mercator's world map of 1569 and 

 a manuscript map by the Portuguese cartographer, Pedro de 

 Lemos. Plancius, it is noteworthy, abandoned the projection 

 devised by Mercator in favour of the simple cylindrical projec- 

 tion {plate carre) of Lemos' map. Mercator's projection, 

 apparently on account of the distortions it introduced in the 

 Polar regions, was not popular with the general public; the 

 cylindrical projection, of course, owing to its parallel meridians 

 introduced distortions of its own, but Plancius offset this to 

 some extent by engraving on the map the length of a degree of 

 longitude at each degree of latitude. iVlso in order to display 

 the Polar regions more correctly, he put on the map two 

 insets drawn on the equidistant zenithal projection centred 

 respectively on the North and South Poles. He adopted the 

 Portuguese conception of the Artie regions in place of Mer- 

 cator's, and also abandoned Mercator's delineation of eastern 

 Asia, which had attempted to reconcile later knowledge with 

 Ptolemy's outline, adopting in its place the more realistic 

 Portuguese representation. He retained, however, and indeed 

 emphasized, Mercator's great southern continent, a theoretical 

 conception supported by very few actual discoveries. He also 

 made further improvements on Mercator, following, for 

 instance, maps in Ortelius' 'Theatrum' for the delineation of 



