MERCATOR, ORTELIUS, AND THEIR SUCCESSORS 125 



interior China. The map is placed within an elaborately 

 engraved border, and is covered with inscriptions, some of 

 considerable length, and vignettes of ships, native peoples, 

 and sea monsters. 



Though one copy only has survived (at Valencia, in Spain), 

 the map was very popular in its day. It is sometimes said, 

 probably erroneously, that an edition was published in London. 

 Thomas Blundeville, however, in his 'Exercises', 1594, gave a 

 full translation of all the legends, and confirmed it as the work 

 of Plancius (for the map does not bear his name). In 1604 the 

 map was entirely re-engraved with modifications by J. van den 

 Ende. The main changes were the insertion of Barendtsz's 

 discoveries in the Novaya Zemlya area, a more detailed 

 representation of Guiana based largely on Sir Walter Raleigh's 

 voyage, the insertion of Davis Strait, and amendments to the 

 coastline of southern Africa and South America, based on 

 Portuguese and Spanish sources. Inset maps of important 

 straits and passages were also added. 



It is remarkable that it should have been thought worth 

 while to re-engrave completely so large a map, but there was 

 evidently a large contemporary demand for such works. The 

 following year, W. J. Blaeu published a large general map in 

 two hemispheres on the stereographic projection, and Plancius 

 a very similar map in 1607. A year later, Jodocus Hondius 

 broke new ground by publishing one drawn on Mercator's 

 projection. Perhaps because this projection was not popular, 

 not being understood by the general public, he reverted in his 

 next world map of 1611 to the two hemispheres on the stereo- 

 graphic projection. The series was finally closed with J. W. 

 Blaeu's large world map on a similar design, issued to mark 

 the Peace of Westphalia which closed the long war with Spain 

 in 1648. Without going into great detail, certain characteristics 

 of these maps may be indicated. In general, they make use of 

 the Portuguese- Spanish outline made familiar by Plancius, to 

 which the results of Dutch exploration and charting were 

 progressively added. Little attention was paid to inland areas, 

 even to those to which the scanty information available applied. 

 It thus came about that while later examples had improved 

 outlines, the interior might be less accurately represented than 



