C 5 6 5 ] 
However, the errors herein were fooner difcovered 
than corrected, both by mathematicians and ma- 
riners, as by Martin Cortefe, Petrus Nonius, Coigniet, 
and forne fay by Ptolemy himfelf. 
The firft ftep towards the improvement of this 
chart was made by Gerardus Mercator, who pub- 
lifhed a map about the year i yyo, wherein the de- 
grees of latitude were increafed from the equator to- 
wards each pole ; but upon what principles this was 
conftrufted, he did not exhibit. 
About the year i fpo, Mr. Edward Wright, an 
Englifhman, difcovered the true principles upon 
which fuch a chart fhould be conftruCted ; and com- 
municated the fame to one Jodocus Hondius, an en- 
graver, who, contrary to his honeft faith and engage- 
ment, published the fame as his own invention : This 
occalioned Mr. Wright, in the year 1599, to exhibit 
his method of conftruCtion, in his book, intitled, 
Correction of Errors in Navigation ; in the preface of 
which book may be feen his charge and proof againfl 
Hondius ; and alfo how far Mercator has any right 
to fhare in the honour due for this great improve- 
ment in geography and navigation. 
Blundevill, in his Exercifes, page 327, publifhed 
anno 1594, gives a table of meridional parts an- 
swering to even degrees, from i° to 8o° of latitude, 
with the fketch of a chart conftrudted therefrom ; 
but this table he acknowledgeth to have received 
from Mr. Wright, in the following words, page 326, 
viz. “ In the mean time to reform the faide faults,” 
(in the plane chart) “ Mercator hath in his univerfal 
“ chard or mappe made the fpaces of the parallels 
<{ of latitude to bee wider everie one than other 
“ from the equinoctial towards either of the poles, 
7 “ by; 
