Bibliographical history of electricity & magnetism, chronologically arranged

by Unknown

MERCATOR’S PROJECTION

The just claim of the English mathematician, Edward Wright

Mercator, Gerardus (latinized form of Gerhard Kremer), 1512–1594, a Flemish geographer and mathematician, who is mentioned at pp. 79, 508, 516 of this “Bibliographical History of Electricity and Magnetism,” is reported to have invented a new method of making maps. The name of Mercator, it is said, was given to Kremer on account of the great usefulness of his reported invention to mercators or merchants.

Mercator’s earliest map was published in 1537. One year later appeared his Map of the World (rediscovered during 1878 in New York), and, in 1541, he introduced a terrestrial globe which was followed, ten years afterwards, by his equally well-known celestial globe. Then appeared, in 1568–1569, the first edition of his celebrated planisphere, intended for use in navigation, which is the earliest known map on what is called “Mercator’s Projection,” and, in later years, he brought out many other maps as well as geographical tables, etc., which are too numerous to be specified here. [See article Mercator in the Belgian “Biographie Nationale,” Vol. XIV, 1897, and consult likewise “L’œuvre géographique de Mercator” by Van Ostroy, “Meyers Konversations Lexikon,” 1897, Vol. XII, pp. 153–154, also “La Nouvelle Biographie Générale” de Mr. le Dr. Hœfer, Vol. XXV. p. 11.]

The original constructor of the chart known as “Mercator’s Projection” is, however, said to be a very able English mathematician, Edward Wright (1560–1615) who is alluded to herein at pp. 78, 79, 520, 524, 532. He was the designer of a very large sphere for Prince Henry, which showed the motion of the planets, etc., and he predicted the eclipses for a period of 17,100 years.

So much has been said herein regarding different well-known maps that the following cannot but prove interesting. It is in apparently just claim on behalf of Edward Wright to the above-named invention, and, as stated in the volume published during 1880 by John Davis for the Hakluyt Society, the first Map of the World that was engraved in England on Wright’s (Mercator’s) projection is fully described by Mr. C. M. Coote in a Note at pp. 85–95 of the Davis “Voyages and Works.” That map, he says, was published one year after Wright had explained the principle of the projection in his “Certain Errors.” From Mr. Coote’s description, the following is extracted:

What appears to have escaped the notice of Hallam, and those who have attempted to describe it at various times down to our day, is, that our map is laid down upon the projection commonly known as Mercator’s. So little appears to be known as to the early history of this projection, that as recently as April 16, 1878, it has been suggested by Mr. Elias F. Hall that charts upon this projection were not in general use among seamen at a period much earlier than 1630. Still more recently it has been gravely asserted that a distinguished Admiral of the American navy only knew of it as the Merchant’s projection, and that he never knew that there was such a man as Mercator. In 1569 was produced at Duisbourg, Mercator’s well-known Mappemonde, and many years elapsed before it attracted the notice of other mapmakers. However interesting it may be to us as a monument of geography, it is now admitted that, as regards the projection, it is only approximately correct up to latitude 40. For the want of a demonstration of the true principles upon which such a projection was to be laid down, beyond the legend on the Mappemonde, it found but few imitators. The only three known to us are Bernardus Puteanus of Bruges in 1579, Cornelius de Jode in 1589, and Petrus Plancius in 1594. Of the first and third no examples of their maps on this projection are known to exist, these two doubtless had all the imperfections of the original Mercator. De Jode’s “Speculum Orbis Terrarum” of 1589 is remarkable, as, while being on the old plane projection with the lines of latitude and longitude equidistant, there is to be seen on it a feeble attempt to divide the central meridional line according to the idea of Mercator, one of the best possible proofs how imperfectly this idea was understood by Mercator’s own fellow-countrymen. About 1597 was published by Jodocus Hondius in Amsterdam, a map entitled Typus Totius Orbis Terrarum, etc., easily to be recognized by an allegorical figure, at the bottom of it, of a Christian soldier armed for the fight against all the powers of evil. This is on the true projection, known as Mercator’s, but which is really that of Edward Wright. From Hondius’ connection with Mercator, and whose joint portraits from the frontispiece of the well-known Atlas of the latter, it might with good reason be supposed that Hondius acquired the art of projecting this map from Mercator, yet if one thing is more certain than another in the history of this projection, it is the fact that Hondius did not acquire this art from Mercator or his map, but from Edward Wright, the friend and colleague of Hakluyt.

In proof of this, the following evidence is adduced. We learn from Blundeville that, at some previous period, probably as early as 1592, Wright sent his friend, the author, “a table to drawe thereby the parallells in the Mariner’s Carde, together with the vse thereof in trewer sort, with a draught” or diagram of the projection. These, it is evident, were extracts from Wright’s “Errors in Navigation,” then in MS. Wright, in his preface to the reader, in his work when printed, bitterly complains that he was induced to lend MS. to Hondius, who, with its aid and without Wright’s consent, prepared and published several “mappes of the World, which maps had been vnhatched, had not he [Hondius] learned the right way to lay the groundwork of some of them out of his book.” That the above Typus is one of the printed maps complained of, seems to be proved by the allusion to Wright to be found on it.

The strongest evidence against the theory of Hondius having acquired this art from Mercator, is the fact that in none of the subsequent editions of Mercator’s Atlases edited by him is there a map on this projection to be found. The truth is, that to Wright, and not to Mercator, is due the honour of being the first to demonstrate the true principles upon which such maps were to be laid down by means of the now well-known Tables of meridional parts.

The first legitimate attempt to lay down a map upon the really true projection, is no other than the original of our map. Before proceeding to point out some of its remaining points of interest, it will be convenient here to endeavour to remove one or two misapprehensions respecting it, which are even now entertained by more than one of our eminent booksellers.

Mr. Quaritch, without adducing the least amount of evidence, asserts that “Hakluyt intended to insert this map in his work of 1589.” This is impossible, as from internal evidence it could not possibly have been produced at an earlier period than 1598 or 1599, as has been before pointed out. Upon this point we fear that Mr. Quaritch has allowed himself to be misled by the pardonable blunder of Hallam. Again he says, that Hakluyt calls the original of our great map a terrestrial globe. This is also a mistake. When Hakluyt said a globe, he meant one, and not a map; such a globe as he describes was forthcoming in 1592, at a period midway between the first edition of the “Voyages” and the appearance of our map. The only example of this globe at present known to exist is preserved in the Library of the Middle Temple.

Hitherto one of the difficulties in describing and establishing the identity of this map has been its anonymous authorship. Mr. Quaritch, in an otherwise fair appreciation of the writer’s labours in this direction, has thought fit, in another part of his catalogue, to charge the writer with appropriating Mr. Quaritch’s labours in this matter of authorship. The charge has found no foundation in any fact whatsoever. The writer’s conclusions about it were based solely upon a comparison made between our map and a globe, two things which Mr. Quaritch has confounded. The globe referred to is known to be by Molyneux, the reference to it in the title of the map led the writer to the not unnatural inference that they were by one and the same author. This position the writer strengthened by two quotations from a scarce tract by the late Dr. J. G. Kohl of Bremen, which was published twenty years before Mr. Quaritch’s catalogue of 1877 [No. 11919] saw the light. The conclusion arrived at by the writer, without any assistance from Quaritch, was that our map, circa 1600, was a new one, on a new projection, made by one of the most eminent globe-makers of his time, probably under the superintendence of Hakluyt. The evidence upon this point is of course strongly circumstantial only, which future research may either refute or confirm. Be this as it may, one thing is now quite certain, namely, that our map, to a very great extent, bears evidence upon the face of it of the handiwork of another of Hakluyt’s friends and colleagues, hitherto unsuspected, we take it, even by Mr. Quaritch. Allusion has been already made to Wright’s “Errors in Navigation,” the first edition of which was published in 1599. In 1610 appeared the second edition, in which mention is made of a general map, which map it has not been our good fortune to see, as the copy in our national library is without it. Several editions were subsequently published by Moxon. In these are to be seen copies of a map laid down upon lines almost identical with ours. They have geographical additions up to date, and also indicate the variations of the compass. These later maps are avowedly ascribed to Wright, and a comparison of any one of them with our map most certainly points to one common source, namely, the original. The conclusion is therefore irresistible, that whatever may be due to Molineux or Hakluyt in the execution of the original, it also represents the first map upon the true projection by Edward Wright. It will be observed as a somewhat happy coincidence that Hallam’s almost first words of introduction to our map are a reference to the Arctic work of Davis, 1585–1587. On the map is also to be observed a record of the discovery by the Dutchman Barents, of northern Novaya Zemlya, in his third voyage in 1596. This is the latest geographical discovery recorded upon it, which serves not only to determine the date of the map, but to establish for it the undoubted claim of being the earliest one engraved in England, whereon this last important Arctic discovery is to be found. The striking similarity between our map and Molineux’s globe, in the delineations of these Arctic discoveries of Davis and Barents, seems to point to the conclusion that, so far as the geography is concerned, they both came from one source, namely, the hands of Molyneux.

Arctic discovery did not escape the notice of our immortal Shakespere. In some fifty lines preceding his supposed reference to our map in “Twelfth Night,” occur the following words. “You are now sailed into the north of my lady’s opinion, where you will hang like an icicle on a Dutchman’s beard.” The antithetical idea being of course the equatorial region of the lady’s opinion. If the date assigned to it is correct it is probable in the extreme that the thought underlying these words was suggested to the mind of Shakespere by a glance at the upper portion of our map, evidently well known in his time as a separate publication. The remaining points that call for notice are as follows. The improved geography of the whole of the eastern portion of our map, as compared with its contemporaries, and the traces of the first appearance of the Dutch under Davis and Houtman at Bantam. On all the maps was to be seen the huge Terra Australis of the old geography. This, as Hallam remarked, had been left out on our map; but what is so remarkable is that upon it is to be observed, rising “like a little cloud out of the seas, like a man’s hand,” the then unknown continent of Australia. It will be observed that Hallam describes the original as “the best map of the sixteenth century.” Mr. Quaritch improves upon this, and says it is “by far the finest chartographical labour which appeared, from the epoch of the discovery of America down to the time of d’Anville.” If this implies a reference to our map as a work of art, i. e. an engraving, we beg to differ from him, as such terms are misleading. As a specimen of map engraving, it will not compare with even its pirated prototype by Hondius. The art of engraving by Englishmen, more particularly that of maps, was at this period, as is well known, in its infancy. Maps and illustrations for books were for the most part executed abroad, and those who did work here were almost all foreigners. The two best known were Augustus Ryther, who executed among other things the maps for Saxton’s Atlas, and Hondius, who did those for Speed’s Atlas. Mr. Richard Fisher writes: “We have scarcely any record of any Englishmen practising engraving in this country prior to the commencement of the seventeenth century.” The names, however, of two are afforded us by Davis himself in his Introduction to the “Seaman’s Secrets,” namely, those of Molyneux and Hillyer. It is to be hoped that the position of our map in the history of cartography is secured upon firmer grounds than those suggested by the best intentions of Mr. Quaritch. It was the writer’s belief in this that first led him to express the hope that the original of the facsimile, so admirably done for the Society, would henceforth be as firmly associated with Shakespere’s “Twelfth Night” as it certainly is now, not only with the page of Hakluyt, but with the publications of the Society that bears his name.