200 General Notes. { March, 
The earliest thing known in the nature of a map is the ground 
plan of a town identified as that of Susa, the Shushan of the 
Bible, a city of remote antiquity. The ‘plan is supposed to be as . 
old as the seventh century before Christ and represents with mi- 
nute accuracy the details of the town. The Egyptians doubtless 
had maps and some general idea of the form of the earth. It is 
from the Greeks that we get our earliest knowledge of maps. 
Strabo says that Anaximander (B. C. 612) was the first who re- 
presented the world ona map. Parmenides, a contemporary of 
Herodotus, is said by Diogenes Laertes to have been the first per- 
son who asserted that the earth was of a spherical form and the 
same idea was entertained by Socrates. Strabo credits Parmen- 
ides also with having been the first to divide the globe into five 
zones, or, as they were then called, climates. Aristotle, half a 
century afterward, was convinced that the earth was a globe, 
drawing that conclusion from the shadow which it casts on the 
sun in eclipses. Crates (B. C. 325) constructed a globe of the 
inhabited part of the earth—from the arctic to the tropic in the 
form of a half circle. Dicearchus (B. C. 296) constructed a map 
of the world in oval form. With Eratosthenes (220 B. C.) the - 
science of geography may be said to have begun. He devised 
what has ever since been employed as the most accurate means 
of determining the circumference of the earth, the measurement 
of an arc of the meridian. Hipparchus, a century later, first 
divided the globe by lines of longitude and latitude into degrees. 
Ptolemy of Alexandria (A. D. 250) is one of the best known of 
ancient geographers. His geography is based on the work of his 
immediate predecessor, Marinus of Tyre. The works of Eratos- 
thenes, Hipparchus and Marinus have perished, and the geogra- 
phies of St rabo, Pomponius Mela and Ptolemy are the only 
important works ‘of the ancients that as come down to us. A 
period of 1200 years elapses from the time of Ptolemy to the 
inauguration by Prince Henry of Portugal of the spirit of mari- 
time enterprise which led to the a ai of Africa and 
the discovery of the continent of America. This includes the 
period of the Dark Ages. The Arabs Sie the ninth to the 
thirteenth centuries. however, assiduously cultivated geography. 
To them we owe the preservation of the works of Ptolemy. They 
determined the obliquity of the ecliptic and measured two arcs of 
the meridian. Through their intercourse with China the west- 
ern world probably learned of the mariner's compass. The 
Chinese also had maps from a very remote pe 
After the journeys of Marco Polo and Caaeticdites't in the fif- 
teenth century, many curious and remarkable maps were exe- 
cuted. On that of Benewitz (1524-48) the name “America” first 
spoon The last and greatest map is that of Gerard AER ot 
better known to the world by the Latinizing of his name as 
cator (1569). His projection not only gave the world in one view, 
