[466] The copy of Mercator’s map preserved in the National library, in Paris, which is entitled “Nova et aucta orbis terrae descriptio at usum navigantium emendeté accommodata,” measures seventy-eight and a half inches by fifty inches. On this map is represented the earth in plano, the meridians being paralleled and the parallels of latitude straight lines, according to those principles of projection known as Mercator’s projection. Respecting the latter, he says, in an inscription on the chart: “On account of which considerations, we have increased gradually the length of the degrees of latitude toward each pole proportionate to the increase of the parallels beyond the length which they have on the globe, relatively to the equator:—“Quibus consideratis, gradus latitudinum versus utrumque polum paulatim auximus pro incremento parallelorum supra rationem quam habint ad acquinoctialem.” Abraham Ortelius, the eminent cartographer, speaks of this map of Mercator’s as “his never-enough-praised universal chart,—Sua nunquam satis laudata universalis tabula.”

[467] A copy of this chart in the general library of the State of New York, at Albany, is entitled: “The Original Carte Figurative, of which the above is an accurate fac-simile, was found on the 26th of June, 1841, in the Locket-kas, of the States General, in the Royal archives at the Hague.”

[468] “This map,” says John Romeyn Brodhead, the historian, “is undoubtedly one of the most interesting memorials we have. It is about three feet long, and shows, very minutely, the course of the Hudson River from Manhattan to above Albany, as well as a portion of the sea-coast; and contains, likewise, curious notes and memoranda about the neighboring Indians,—the work, perhaps, of one of the companions of Hudson ... and made within five years of the discovery of our river, its fidelity of delineation is scarcely less remarkable than its high antiquity.”—Address of J. Romeyn Brodhead, November 20, 1844. Coll. New York Historical Soc. 1845. p. 16.

[469] “Ma so vele men heeft connen verstaen uyt i seggen ende beduyen van de Maquaas so comen de Françoysen met sloupen tot bovem aen haer land met haerluy handelen.”

[470] “Fort van Nassoureen is binnen de wallen 58 voeten wydt in ’t viercant de gracht is wydt 18 voeten.” Fort Nassau is 58 feet wide between the walls and built as a square; the moat is 18 feet wide. “’t hujs is 36 voeten lanch en 26 wyt in t fort.” The house in the fort is 36 feet long and 26 wide.

[471] Journal of a voyage to New York and a tour in several of the American colonies in 1679 and 1680, by Jasper Dankers and Peter Sluyter of Wiewerd in Friesland. Translated from the original MSS. in the Dutch for the Long Island Historical Society by Henry C. Murphy. Memoirs of Long Island Hist. Soc. 1867. vol. i. p. 318.

INDEX.

THE END.