TRANSACTIONS 
OP THE 
HERTFORDSHIRE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
ERTFORDSHIRE MAPS : 
DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE 
OE THE 
MAPS OF THE COTJNTY, 
1579 to 1900. 
By Herbert George Fordham. 
[1611.] 
Read at Watford, 23rd October, 1900. 
Introduction. 
In the latter part of the sixteenth and the commencement of 
the seventeenth centuries cartography achieved a considerable 
development, dependent in a large measure on two causes—the 
increase of navigation and the invention of the arts of printing 
and of engraving on wood and copper. 
So much attention was given to this subject that, in the first 
edition of his ‘ Theatrum Orbis Terr arum'' (1570), Ortelius was 
able to give, in a 4 Catalogus Auctorum tabularum geographic arum ,’ 
the names of nearly a hundred cartographers; and, in subsequent 
editions of his great work, Ortelius’ list increases first to 134 and 
then to 170 names. 
Many atlases and collections of maps, some with and some 
without historical and geographical letterpress, were published 
VOL. XI.—PART I. 
1 
