Globes manufactured for commercial purposes by Blaeu and
others have already been mentioned, but several large globes,
for show rather than for use, were produced in addition to these.
Thus A. Busch, of Limburg (1656–1664), manufactured a globe
for Duke Frederick of Holstein, formerly at Gottorp, but since
1713 at Tsarskoye Zelo. It has a diameter of 11 ft. (3.57 metres)
and is hollow, the inner surface of the shell being covered with
a star map, and the outer surface with a map of the world.
Professor Erh. Weigel (1696) produced a hollow celestial globe
in copper, having a small terrestrial globe in its centre. Its
diameter is 3.25 metres. Lastly there is a pair of giant globes of
artistic design, turned out by V. Coronelli (1623), and intended
as presents to Louis XIV. Their diameter is nearly 5 metres.
A pair of globes of 1592 by Emeric Molineux (diam. 610 mm.) is
now in the Temple Library, and is referred to in Blundeville’s
Exercises (1594).
The Eighteenth Century.—It was no mere accident which enabled France to enjoy a pre-eminence in cartographic work during the greater part of the 18th century. Not only had French men of science and scientific travellers done excellent work as explorers in different parts of the world, but France could also boast of two men, Guillaume Delisle and J. B. Bourguignon d’Anville, able to utilize in the compilation of their maps the information they acquired.
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| Fig. 32. |
Delisle (1675–1726) published 98 maps, and although as works of art they were inferior to the maps of certain contemporaries, they were far superior to them in scientific value. On one of his earliest maps compiled under advice of his father Claude (1700), he gave the Mediterranean its true longitudinal extension of 41°. It was Delisle who assumed the meridian of Ferro, which had been imposed upon French navigators by royal order (1634), to lie exactly 20° to the west of Paris. The work of reform was carried further by B. D’Anville (1697–1782). Altogether he published 211 maps, of which 66 are included in his Atlas général (1737–1780); he swept away the fanciful lakes from off the face of Africa, thus forcibly bringing home to us the poverty of our knowledge (fig. 32), delineated the Chinese Empire in accordance with the map based on the surveys conducted during the reign of the emperor Kanghi, with the aid of Jesuit missionaries, and published in 1718; boldly refused to believe in the existence of an Antarctic continent covering half the southern hemisphere, and always brought a sound judgment to bear upon the materials which the ever-increasing number of travellers placed at his disposal. Among other French works of importance deserving notice are Le Neptune oriental of Mannevillette (1745) and more especially the Carte géometrique de la France, which is based upon surveys carried on (1744–1783) by César François Cassini de Thury and his son Dominique de Cassini. It is on a transversal cylindrical (rectangular) projection devised by Jacques Cassini (d. 1746). The hills are shown in rough hachures.
England, which had entered upon a career of naval conquest and scientific exploration, had reason to be proud of J. F. W. Desbarres, Atlantic Neptune (1774), a North-American Pilot (1779), which first made known the naval surveys of J. Cook and of others; and Tho. Jefferys’s West Indian and American Atlases (1775, 1778). James Rennell (1742–1830), who was surveyor-general of India, published the Bengal Atlas (1781), and sagaciously arranged the vast mass of information collected by British travellers and others in India and Africa, but it is chiefly with the name of Aaron Arrowsmith, who came to London in 1778, and his successors, with which the glory of the older school of cartographers is most intimately connected. His nephew John died in 1873. Among local cartographers may be mentioned H. Moll (d. 1732), J. Senex, whose atlas was published in 1725, and Dowet, whose atlas was brought out at the expense of the duke of Argyll.
In Germany J. B. Homann (d. 1724) founded a geographical establishment in 1702, which depended at first upon copies of British and French maps, but in course of time published also original maps such as J. M. Hase’s Africa (1727) and Tobias Meyer’s Mappa critica of Germany (1780), J. T. Güssfeld’s map of Brandenburg (1773), John Majer’s Württemburg (1710), and J. C. Müller’s Bavaria, both based on trigonometrical surveys. Colonel Schmettau’s excellent survey of the country to the west of the Weser (1767–1787) was never published, as Frederick the Great feared it might prove of use to his military enemies. Switzerland is represented by J. J. Scheuchzer (1712), J. Gessner (d. 1790), G. Walser (Atlas novus Helvetiae, 1769), and W. R. Meyer, Atlas der Schweiz (1786–1802). Of the Austrian Netherlands, Count Joseph de Ferrari published a chorographic map on the same scale as Cassini’s Carte de la France (1777). Of Denmark a fine map was published under the auspices of the Academy of Science of Copenhagen (1766–1825); of Spain and Portugal an atlas in 102 sheets by Thomas Lopez (1765–1802); of Russia a map by J. N. Delisle in 19 sheets (1730–1745); charts illustrating the variation of the compass and of magnetic “dip” by E. Dunn (1776), J. C. Wiffe (1768); a chart of the world by W. Dampier (1789). Map projections were dealt with by two eminent mathematicians, J. H. Lambert (1772) and Leonh. Euler (1777).
On the maps of Delisle and d’Anville the ground is still represented by “molehills.” Hachures of a rude nature first made their appearance on David Vivier’s map of the environs of Paris (1674), and on Cassini’s Carte de la France. Contour lines (isobaths) were introduced for the first time on a chart of the Merwede by M. S. Cruquius (1728), and on a chart of the English Channel by Phil. Buache (1737). Dupain-Triel, acting on a suggestion of Du Carla, compiled a contoured map of France (1791), and it only needed the introduction of graduated tints between these contours to secure a graphic picture of the features of the ground. It was J. G. Lehmann (1783) who based his method of hill-shading or hachuring upon these horizontal contours. More than 80 methods of showing the hills have found advocates since that time, but all methods must be based upon contours to be scientifically satisfactory.
Two relief maps of Central Switzerland deserve to be mentioned, the one by R. L. Pfyffer in wax, now in Lucerne, the other by J. R. Meyer of Aarau and Müller of Engelberg in papier mâché, now in Zurich. Globes of the usual commercial type were manufactured in France by Delisle (1700), Forbin (1710–1731), R. and J. de Vaugondy (1752), Lalande (1771); in England by E. and G. Adams (1710–1766); Germany by Homann and Seutter (1750). A hollow celestial globe 18 ft. in diameter was set up by Dr Roger Long at Cambridge; the terrestrial globe which Count Ch. Gravie of Vergennes presented to Louis XVI. in 1787 had a diameter of 26 metres, or 85 ft.
Modern Cartography.—The compiler of maps of the present day enjoys many advantages not enjoyed by men similarly occupied a hundred years ago. Topographical surveys are gradually extending, and explorers of recent years are better trained for their work than they were a generation ago, whilst technical processes of recent invention—such as lithography, photography and heliogravure—facilitate or expedite the completion of his task. This task, however, has grown more difficult and exacting. Mere outline maps, such as formerly satisfied the public, suffice no longer. He is called upon more
