The Coolidge examiner., 1933-10-13

plored areas decorated by sea ser
pents, mermaids, wrecked galleon6,
and chubby angel faces blowing the
winds. began to fade from use.
Mercator's Great Work.
Gerhard Kremer, known by his
Latinized name of Mercator, was
among the first to break with these
old traditions. Famous mathemati-
clan and photographer of Flanders,
he drew world chart in 1869 on
the "Mercator Projection" which
gave navigators a new and safer
system for plotting their courses.
BY this projection lines of lati-
tude and longitude are mathemat-
ically spaced and drawn at right
angles to each other On this grid
sailors have merely to rule
straight line as their course and
sail to port Because the earth Is
round, this does not give the short
est route between two points, but
it does show the right bearing"
In his time Mercator helped to
change map making from an art
into a science. New and accurate
instruments for measuring the
ground were coming into use, and
slowly they led the way to to-
geographic surveys.
~ Frin
on his fathers map trade. When
Rumold died his brother-in-law, Ju-
docus Hondius, took it over. The
Hondius earth map Of 1895, now In
the British museum, traces Sir Fran
els brakes course around the
world.
Dutch map publishers led the
world in the Seventeenth century
and the French In the Eighteenth.
A French scientist rolled a carriage
wheel across the northern French
plains to measure degree arc Of
the meridian. In time came DAN
vile, issuing a new map of China
drawn by the Jesuits In 1718.
Other map makers arose in Ger
many, England, Austria and Switz-
erland.
No country is so well surveyed as
Great Britain; no maps anywhere
are comparable, for information and
range of scale, with those Of its ord
nance survey.
Early American Maps.
Before the Revolution such maps
of our country as existed were
drawn mostly by those European
powers who had colonies here.
Among such were the early Spanish
maps of Florida, the Southwest, and
California also Lewis Evans map
of the Middle British Colonies in
America" published in Philadelphia
In 1855.
What has been called the most
important map in United States his
tory is that drawn by DR.. John
Mitchell, showing the French and
British dominions in North Amer
lea. After CORVALLIS yielded at
Yorktown and British diplomats met
the Americans at Paris to frame
the treaties of 1928, this map was
used. Of 1t John Adams wrote: 1--WE
had before us variety or
maps; bot 1t was the Mitchell map
upon which was marked out the
whole boundary lines of the United
States"
During the first half of the Six
teenth century such Spanish explor-
ers as Cabeza de Vaca, Coronado,
De Soto, and others had made crude
maps of their routes; so had the
French vOyaging the Great Lakes
and canoeing down the Mississippi.
William Clark, of the Lewis and
Clark expedition, In 1906, made a
map showing their route TO Oregon
and the north boundary of Louis
lana, then in the upper Mississippi
Basin. Later came Zebulon Pike,
the Santa Fe traders and the beav-
er trappers from st. Louis-Bonne-
vile, Walker, Fremont, and others
all shown on Frank Bonds Routes
of the Principal Explorers" pub
lished by the United States land Of
fee in 1907.
After the Civil war, mapping Of
the United States, particularly Of
the great West, began in earnest,
directed by the newly created Unit
ed States geological survey. Long
before that, to aid settlers, the gov
ernment land office had done much
mapping, often under contract and
not always accurate