Chapter VI: Norumbega and Its English Explorers (3)

Under the auspices of this Society some important historical work has been done. Dr. Kohl’s book is the most elaborate summary yet made of the early explorations on our New England coast. The labors of Dr. Woods have been the subject of consideration in Dr. E. A. Park’s _Life and Character of Leonard Woods_, Andover, 1880, 52 pp., and in Dr. C. C. Everett’s notice in _Me. Hist. Coll._, viii. 481, and in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, xviii. 15. The late George Folsom opened an important field of investigation in his _Catalogue of Original Documents in the English Archives relating to the Early History of Maine_, privately printed, New York, 1858, which covers the years 1601-1700, and is said to have been compiled for him by Mr. H. G. Somerby. See _N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._,1859, p. 262, and 1869, p. 481. Of the labors of William D. Williamson, the principal historian of the State, there is due record in the _Historical Magazine_, xiii. 265, May, 1868, and in the _N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._, i. 90. The Hon. William Willis, of whom there are accounts in the _Maine Hist. Coll._, vii. 473, and in the _N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._, 1873, p. 1, was for many years the president of the Society, and besides furnishing many communications, he issued a bibliography of Maine in _Norton’s Literary Letter_, no. 4, 1859, which was much enlarged in the _Historical Magazine_, xvii. 145, March, 1870. In connection with this subject the bibliography in Griffin’s _History of the Press in Maine_, 1872, deserves notice. There is in the _Hist. Mag._, Jan. 1868, an account of the Maine Historical Society and the historical investigations it has patronized.

A list of the charters and grants on the Maine coast is given in the _Hist. Mag._, March, 1870, p. 154. See in this connection S. F. Haven’s lecture in the _Mass. Hist. Soc. Lowell Lectures_.

We are indebted for the photograph used by the engraver to Dr. Kohl’s successor in the librarianship of the Public Library at Bremen, Dr. Heinrich Bulthaupt. No name ranks higher than Kohl’s in the investigations of our early North American geography. “From my childhood,” he says, “I was highly interested in geographical researches in connection with history.” Having gathered much material on the early cartographical history of America in the archives and libraries of Europe, he came to this country, and receiving an appropriation from Congress to enable him to make copies of his maps for the Government, he undertook that work, the results of which are now in the State Department at Washington. All that he desired to do was not provided for by the order of Congress, and he returned to Europe disappointed in his hopes, but leaving behind him, besides the collections in Washington, a memoir with maps on the discovery of the western coast of America, which is now in the library of the American Antiquarian Society. In Europe he annotated and published at Munich in fac-simile the two oldest general maps of America, those known as Ribero’s and Ferdinando Columbus’s, and a treatise on the history of the Gulf Stream, as well as a condensed popular history of the discovery of America. In 1868 he undertook, what proved to be his chief contribution to American historical geography, his _Discovery of Maine_. He did not feel that he had accomplished all in this that he would; but it still remains the most important essay since Humboldt in that peculiar field. See Charles Deane’s notice of Kohl in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, Dec. 1878, and the memoir in the _Beilage zur Allgemeinen Zeitung_, Augsburg, July 9, 1879.]

=C.= THE POPHAM COLONY.—It was unfortunate, as it was unnecessary, that any theological color should have been given to the discussion arising out of the claims made for this colony, since the merits of the case concerned solely the historical significance of secular events, upon which all were agreed in the main. The claim asserted by the Maine Historical Society, or by those representing it, was this: That the temporary settlement at Sabino, being made under the charter of 1606, was the first event to secure New England for the English crown, and should therefore be deemed the beginning of the existence of its colonies. The claim of those historical students who took issue was this: That the granting in 1606 of a patent by the king to his subjects concerned no further the question than that it simply formulated a pre-existing claim, while the actual attempts at colonization by Gosnold in 1602, whether authorized or not,—the latter alternative having of late years been brought forward by Dr. De Costa,—were more practically demonstrative of that claim, in accordance with the English interpretation of rights in new countries, namely, actual possession. Further, that the true historic beginning of New England was not in the abortive attempts of Gosnold and Popham to effect a settlement, however much, in connection with many other events, they helped in preparing a way, but in the permanent colonization which was made at Plymouth in 1620, which was the first founded upon family life, and which under greater distress than befell either of the others, was rendered permanent more by the spirit of religious independency, as evinced by their Holland exile, than by the mercenary longing, which was professedly the chief motive of the others. Strachey distinctly says of the Popham Colony, that mining was “the main intended benefit expected.”

It is susceptible of proof that the blood of the Pilgrims and of their congeners runs through the veins of a large part of the population of New England to-day. No genealogical tree has been produced which connects our present life with a single one of the Sabino party. How, then, was New England saved for the English race? The decisive historical event is never those scattering forerunners which always harbinger an epoch, but the fulfilment of the idea which comes in the ripeness of time.

The controversy as it was waged was a reaction from the views with which the Pilgrims had long been regarded for their devotion under trial and for the pluck of their constancy in first making English homes on this part of the continent. Maine writers like George Folsom and William Willis had never questioned such established claims, but had reasserted them. The leading spirit in this revocation of judgment was Mr. John A. Poor, of Portland. This gentleman, having done much to increase the material interests of his native State, entered with pertinacity into a process of rendering, as he claimed, the position of Maine in history more conspicuous. This required the aggrandizement of the fame of Sir Ferdinando Gorges; and he began his missionary work with a vindication of Gorges’ claims to be considered the father of English colonization in America. It was no new idea, for George Folsom had done Gorges justice in his _Discourse_ in 1846. Mr. Poor’s lecture was printed, and was subsequently appended to the _Popham Memorial_. To emphasize this claim, he secured the naming of a new fort in Portland Harbor after Sir Ferdinando in 1860; and in 1862, when the General Government built a fortification on the old peninsula of Sabino, his efforts caused it to be named Fort Popham, and his zeal planned and directed a commemorative service in August of that year on the spot, when a tablet recounting the claims of which he was the champion was placed near its walls. The address which he then delivered, which showed the intemperance, if not the perversity, of an iconoclast, and which appeared with other papers and addresses more or less pronounced in the same way in a _Popham Memorial_, opened the controversy. See also _Historical Magazine_, Jan. 1863, and Sept. 1866, and Mr. C. W. Tuttle’s account of Mr. Poor’s agency in a “Memorial of J. A. Poor,” in the _N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._, Oct. 1872. The committee charged with the preparation of the _Memorial_ unwisely omitted a counter speech of the late J. Wingate Thornton, on “The Colonial Schemes of Popham and Gorges,” which was accordingly printed in the _Congregational Quarterly_, April, 1863, and separately, and is examined favorably by Abner C. Goodell in the _Essex Institute Collections_, Aug. 1863, p. 175. A similar unfavorable estimate of Popham’s colonists had been taken by R. H. Gardiner in the _Maine Historical Collections_, ii. 269; v. 226.

For some years the spirit was kept alive by recurrent commemorations. Mr. Edward E. Bourne (see memoir of him in _N. E. Hist and Geneal. Reg._, 1874, p. 9, and _Me. Hist. Coll._, viii. 386) answered the detractors in an address, “The Character of the Colony founded by George Popham,” Portland, 1864. The statements of Poor and Bourne led to a review by S. F. Haven in the _Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc._, April 26, 1865, and in the _Hist. Mag._ (Dec. 1865, p. 358; March, July, Sept., Nov., 1867; Feb. and May, 1869). There was a dropping fire on both sides for some time. Meanwhile the address in 1865 by James W. Patterson, on _The Responsibilities of the Founders of Republics_, led to a controversy between William F. Poole attacking, and Rev. Edward Ballard and Frederick Kidder defending, the colonists; and their papers were printed together as _The Popham Colony: a Discussion of its Historic Claims_, to which Mr. Poole appended a bibliography of the subject up to 1866. Poole also gave his view of Gorges and the colony in his edition of Johnson’s _Wonder Working Providence_, and in the _North American Review_, Oct. 1868. At the celebration in 1871 Mr. Charles Deane reviewed the erroneous conclusions presented at earlier anniversaries, in a paper on “Early Voyages to New England, and their Influence on Colonization,” which was printed in the _Boston Daily Advertiser_, Sept. 2, 1871. A paper by R. K. Sewall on “Popham’s Town of Fort St. George,” which contains a summary of the arguments and events on the side of its historic importance, is given in the _Me. Hist. Coll._, vii., accompanied by a map of the region. The latest statement of the claim, apart from the review in the Preface to _The Voyage to Sagadahoc_, referred to on an earlier page, is in General Chamberlain’s _Maine_: _her Place in History_, which is too moderate to provoke any criticism. Thus a reaction that at one time claimed the necessity of rewriting history, has in the end engaged few advocates, and is almost lost sight of.

=D.= CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH’S PUBLICATIONS.—The _Description_ is now a rare book, worth with the genuine map, should one be offered, fifty pounds or upwards. There is some bibliographical detail regarding it in the _Memorial History of Boston_, i. 50, 52, 53. Latin and German versions of it were included in De Bry, part x. Michael Sparke, the London printer, issuing Higginson’s _New England’s Plantation_ in 1630, appended this recommendation:—

“But whosoever desireth to know as much as yet can be discovered, I advise them to buy Captaine John Smith’s booke of the description of New England in folio, and reade from fol. 203 to the end; and there let the reader expect to have full content.”

Smith’s letter (1618) to Bacon, upon New England, is in the _Hist. Mag._, July, 1861, and the annexed autograph is taken from the original in the Public Record office. See Sainsbury’s _Calendar of Colonial Papers_, no. 42, p. 21; _Popham Memorial_, App. p. 104; Palfrey, _New England_, i. 97.

A little tract of Smith’s, _New England’s Trials_ [_i. e._ Attempts at Settlements], needs to be taken in connection with the _Description_. Of this tract, of eight pages, published in 1620, there is no copy known in America, and Mr. Deane describes it and reprints it in the _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._ xii. 428, 449, from the Bodleian copy, which differs in the names of the dedication from the British Museum copy. In 1622 it was issued in a second edition, enlarged to fourteen pages, which is also very rare, though copies are in the Deane Collection and in that of John Carter-Brown, from the last of which a privately printed reprint has been made. It was this text which Force used in his _Tracts_, ii. See _Brinley Catalogue_, no. 363.

Smith had moved, April 12, 1621, in a meeting of the Virginia Company, that its official sanction should be given to a compiled history of “that country, from her first discovery to this day,” showing that the purpose of his _Generall Historie_ was then in his mind. (Neill’s _Virginia Company_, p. 210.) The first edition of it was issued in 1624, and in it he included, besides abstracts of various other writings, substantially all his previous publications on America (see the chapter on Virginia in the present volume), except his _True Relation_, in the place of which he had put the _Map of Virginia_, a tract covering the same transactions. When reissued in 1626 it was from the same type, and again in 1627, and twice in 1632. An account of the various editions in the Lenox Library, which differ only in the front matter and plates, can be found in Norton’s _Literary Gazette_, new ser. i. pp. 134 _a_, 218 _c_. Mr. Deane has printed a part of the original prospectus. _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, ix. 454.

The best opportunity for studying the slight diversities of the different issues of this book may be found in the Lenox Library, which has ten copies, showing all the varieties. Among other copies, the following are noted:—

1624., Charles Deane. A large paper dedication copy of this edition, bound for Smith’s patron, the Duchess of Richmond and Lenox, was bought, at the Brinley Sale in 1879, no. 364, for the Lenox Library, $1,800. The Menzies and Barlow copies are also called large paper ones. See _Griswold Catalogue_, no. 778; Field’s _Ind. Bibliog._ no. 1435. The _Huth Catalogue_, p. 1367, gives a copy of this edition in the original rich binding, showing the arms of the Duke of Norfolk quartered with those of his wife, the daughter of the Duchess of Richmond and Lenox.

1626., Harvard College Library. Sparks’s Collection, now at Cornell University, no. 2424.

1627., Prince Library in Boston Public Library. Massachusetts Historical Society. See the _Crowninshield Catalogue_, no. 992.

1631., The _Huth Catalogue_, p. 1367, gives, perhaps by error, an edition of this date. I have noted no other copy.

1632., Harvard College Library.

The two portraits of the Duchess of Richmond and of Matoaka are usually wanting. See the note to chapter v. Average copies without the genuine portraits, which in Rich’s day (1832) were worth five guineas, are now valued at more than three times that sum. The portrait of Smith, which is shown reduced on the map of New England already given, has been similarly reproduced full size in the _Memorial History of Boston_, i., and is engraved in the Richmond edition of the _Generall Historie_, in Bancroft, Drake’s _Boston_, Hillard’s _Life of Smith, N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._, Jan. 1858, etc.

The _Generall Historie_, in conjunction with the _True Travels_, was carelessly reprinted at Richmond, in 1819, at the cost of the Rev. John Holt Rice, D.D., who lost by the speculation. (_N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._, 1877, p. 114.) A large part appeared in Purchas’s _Pilgrims_, iv. 1838. It is given entire in Pinkerton’s _Collections of Voyages_, xiii.

It is the sixth book of this _Generall Historie_ which relates to New England, and in this Smith supplements his own experience, and brings the details down beyond the limits of this present chapter, by borrowing from _Mourt’s Relation_ and reporting upon other accounts, as he did in his still later publication, the tract called _Advertisements for the Unexperienced Planters of New England_, which brings the story down to 1630.

Dr. Palfrey has a note on the confidence to be reposed in Smith’s books, in his _History of New England_, i. 89.

Smith was born in 1579 at Willoughby, as the parish records show. (_Hist. Mag._, i. 313; _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, ix. 451.) He died June 21, 1631, signing his will the same day (_Ibid._ ix. 452), and was buried in St. Sepulchre’s, London, where the inscription above his grave is said to be now illegible. A committee of the American Antiquarian Society was appointed in 1874 to see to its restoration, but were prevented from acting by the demand of a fee for the privilege from the vestry of the church. (_N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._, 1874, p. 222.) In Sparks’s _American Biography_ is a memoir of him by George S. Hillard; another, by W. Gilmore Simms, was printed in 1846; and a recent study of his life and writings has been made by C. D. Warner, who says that the inscription, with the three (Turks’?) heads in St. Sepulchre’s, long supposed to mark the grave of Smith, is proved to commemorate some one who died in September, aged 66, while Smith died June, 1631, aged 51. Stow’s _Survey of London_, 1633, gives the long epitaph which could be read on the walls of the church previous to its destruction in the great London fire in 1666. Cf. Deane in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, Jan. 1867, p. 454.

Simon Passe, whose Latinized name we see on the engraving of Smith’s map, was ten years in England, and engraved many of the chief people of the time; and as he was his own draughtsman, it is probable the portrait of Smith was drawn by Passe from life, though Robert Clerke is credited with draughting the map.

=E.= EARLY GLOBES.—The Molineaux globe referred to in the text was constructed at the instance of that great patron of navigation, William Sanderson. (_Davis’s Voyages_, Introduction by Markham, pp. xii. 211.) It is said to be the earliest ever made in England. (_Ibid._ p. lix.) It is two feet in diameter, and was completed in 1592. (Asher’s _Henry Hudson_, p. 274.) The oldest globe known antedates it more than a century, and of those intervening which are known, the following, with the prototype, deserve mention:—

1. Martin Behaim’s, 1492, preserved in the library at Nuremberg. It presents an open ocean between Europe and Asia. The first meridian runs through Madeira. There is a copy in fac-simile in the Bibliothèque Nationale, at Paris. There have been engraved delineations of it by Doppelmayr at Nuremberg in 1730; by Dr. Ghillany, in connection with his _Geschichte des Seefahrers Ritter Martin Behaim_, 1853; by Jomard in his _Monuments de la Géographie_, 1854-56, pl. 15. There are sections and reductions in Cladera’s _Investigaciones Historicas_, Madrid, 1794; in Lelewel’s _Moyen Age_; in the _Journal of the Royal Geographical Society_, xviii.; in Kohl’s _Discovery of Maine_; in some of the editions of Irving’s _Columbus_; in Bryant and Gay’s _United States_, i. 103; and in Maury’s paper in _Harper’s Monthly_, xlii. (February, 1871).

2. Acquired from a friend in Laon in 1860 by M. Leroux, of the Administration de la Marine at Paris, and represents the geographical knowledge current at Lisbon, 1486-87, according to D’Avezac, who gives a projection of it in the _Bulletin de la Société de Géographie de Paris_, 4th series, viii. (1860). It is dated 1493. The first meridian runs through Madeira.

3. A small copper globe in the Lenox Library, in New York, which is said to be the earliest globe to show the American coast, and its date is fixed at about 1510-12, but by some as early as 1506-7.

This extract is from a tracing by Dr. De Costa. The legends on it are marked as follows: A, Nova Francia; B, Canada; C, Norumbega; D, India; E, Virginia, primum lustrata et Culta ab Anglis inpensis D. Gualteri de Ralegh Equitis Aurati, etc., annuente Elizabetha sev. Angliæ Regina.

1. Hochelaga. 18. S. Cruz. 34. Claudia.
2. Mont Royal. 19. De Breton. 35. Rio Grande.
3. Estade. 20. Aredona. 36. De Lagus.
4. Stadin flu. 21. C. de Breton. 37. Montagna.
5. Saguinay. 22. S. Miguel. 38. B. S. Johan.
6. I. de Orleans. 23. C. Real. 39. Buena Vista.
7. R. Dulce. 24. C. S. Joan. 40. S. Samson.
8. R. S. Laurens. 25. Sinus Laureti. 41. Chesapicke.
9. S. Nicolas. 26. C. d’Esperance. 42. R. de Buelta.
10. C. Tienot. 27. G. de Chalue. 43. C. de Arenas.
11. Chasteaux. 28. Hunedo. 44. S. Christovall.
12. Belle Ysle. 29. I. S. Joan. 45. Chiapanak.
13. C. Blanco. 30. R. de la Pelaijo. 46. Trinitie Harbour.
14. Isle des Oiseaux. 31. R. Vista. 47. P. Hatorack.
15. C. de Bona Vista. 32. R. de Montagnas. 48. C. Hatoras.
16. The Bacailo. 33. Rio Honda. 49. Ye C. of Fear.
17. C. de Razo.]

It was bought in Paris about twenty-five years ago by R. M. Hunt, the architect, and was given by him to Mr. Lenox. It is about five inches in diameter. Dr. De Costa has described it and given a draught of its geography in the _Mag. of Amer. Hist._, Sept. 1879. This paper, translated by M. Gravier, appeared in the _Bulletin de la Société normande de Géographie_, 1880. A projection of it is said to have been made in the Coast Survey Bureau in 1869, at the instance of Mr. Henry Stevens, and a reduction of this is given in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, 9th edition, x. 681, of which the Western Hemisphere is herewith reproduced. The globe opens on the line of the equator, and was probably used as a pyx. It may be said to be the oldest globe showing any part of the New World.

4. Brought to light in a _Catalogue de Livres rares appartenant à M. H. Tross, année 1881_, no. xiv. 4924, where a fac-simile by S. Pilinski is given. The gores composing it are found in a copy of the _Cosmographiæ Introductio_, supposed to have been printed at Lugduni, 1514. This is the claim of the _Catalogue_; but if it belonged to the tract it could hardly have been earlier than 1518. It is understood that the book has been added to an American collection. The plate is styled _Universalis Cosmographie Descriptio tam in solido quem_ [sic] _plano_, and is given in twelve sections. The delineation of South America is marked “America noviter reperta.” It is claimed that this gives this copperplate, “essentiellement française,” the honor of being the earliest to bear the name of America,—that credit having been claimed for the woodcut map in Camer’s edition of Solinus, 1520. The manuscript delineation by Leonardo da Vinci, also giving the name, and preserved at Windsor in the Queen’s collection, probably antedates it.

5. Made by Johann Schoner at Bamberg in 1520, preserved in the library at Nuremberg, and thought, until the discovery of the Lenox globe, to be the earliest showing the discoveries in America. The northern section is still broken up into islands large and small; but South America is delineated with approximate correctness. Dr. Ghillany gave a representation of the American hemisphere in the _Jahresbericht der technischen Anstalten in Nürnberg für 1842_; also see his _Erdglobus von Behaim vom Jahre 1492, und der des Joh. Schoner von 1520_, Nürnberg, 1842, p. 18, two plates. Humboldt examines this Schoner globe in his _Examen critique_, and in his Appendix to Ghillany’s _Ritter Behaim_, where a reproduction is given. There are also delineations or sections in Lelewel’s _Moyen Age_; in Kohl’s _Discovery of Maine_; in Santarem’s _Atlas_; and in Maury’s paper in _Harper’s Monthly_, February, 1871. Schoner published, in 1515, a _Terræ totius descriptio_, without a map, of which there are copies in Harvard College Library and the Carter-Brown Collection at Providence.

6. Preserved at Frankfort-on-the-Main; of unknown origin. It is figured in Jomard’s _Monuments de la Géographie_. See also the _Journal of the Royal Geographical Society_, xviii. 45. It resembles Schoner’s, and Wieser ascribes it to that maker, and dates it 1515. It is 10½ inches in diameter, and by some the date is fixed at 1520.

7. Given by Duke Charles V. of Lorraine to the church at Nancy, and opening in the middle, long used there as a pyx, is now preserved in the Public Library in that town, and was described (with an engraving) by M. Blau in the _Mémoires de la Société royale de Nancy_, in 1836, and again in the _Compte-Rendu, Congrès des Américanistes_, 1877, p. 359, and from a photograph by Dr. DeCosta, in the _Magazine of American History_, March, 1881. It makes North America the eastern part of Asia, and transforms Norumbega into Anorombega. It is made of silver, gilt, and is six inches in diameter.

8. Supposed to be of Spanish origin; preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale, at Paris, and formerly belonged to the brothers De Bure. It bears a close resemblance to the Frankfort globe.

9. In the custody of the successors of Canon L’Ecuy of Prémontré. It is without date, and D’Avezac fixed it before 1524; others put it about 1540. It is the first globe to show North America disconnected from Asia. It is said to be now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, at Paris. Cf. Raemdonck, _Les Sphères de Mercator_, p. 28.

10. What was thought to be the only copy known of one of Gerard Mercator’s engraved globes was bought at the sale of M. Benoni-Verelst, at Ghent, in May, 1868, by the Royal Library at Brussels. In 1875 it was reproduced in twelve plane gores at Brussels, in folio, as a part of _Sphère terrestre et sphère céleste de Gerard Mercator, éditées à Louvain en 1541 et 1551_, and one of the sections is inscribed, “EDEBAT GERARDUS MERCATOR RUPELMUNDANUS CUM PRIVILEGIO CES: MAIESTATIS AD AN SEX LOVANII AN 1541.” Only two hundred copies of the fac-simile were printed. There are copies in the Library of the State Department at Washington, of Harvard College, and of the American Geographical Society, New York. The outline of the eastern coast of America is shown with tolerable accuracy, though there is no indication of the discoveries of Cartier in the St. Lawrence Gulf and River, made a few years earlier. In 1875 a second original was discovered in the Imperial Court Library at Vienna; and a third is said to exist at Weimar.

11. Of copper, made apparently in Italy,—at Rome, or Venice,—by Euphrosynus Ulpius in 1542, is fifteen and one half inches in diameter, was bought in 1859 out of a collection of a dealer in Spain by Buckingham Smith, and is now in the Cabinet of the New York Historical Society. The first meridian runs through the Canaries, and it shows the demarcation line of Pope Alexander VI. It is described in the _Historical Magazine_, 1862, p. 302, and the American parts are engraved in B. Smith’s _Inquiry into the Authenticity of Verrazano’s Claims_, and Henry C. Murphy’s _Verrazzano_, p. 114. See Harrisse, _Notes sur la Nouvelle France_, no. 291. The fullest description, accompanied by engravings of it, is given by B. F. De Costa in the _Magazine of American History_, January, 1879; and in his _Verrazano the Explorer_, New York, 1881, p. 64.

The Legends of this Globe are these: 1. Parias. 2. C. San til. 3. Isabelle. 4. Jamaica. 5. Spagnolla. 6. Lit. incognita [The Baccalaos region]. The passage to the west by the Central America isthmus will be observed.]

Mr. C. H. Coote, in his paper on “Globes” in the new edition of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, x. 680, mentions two other globes of the sixteenth century, which may antedate that of Molineaux, both by A. F. van Langren,—one in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, and the other, discovered in 1855, in the Bibliothèque de Grenoble.

The globe-makers immediately succeeding Molineaux were W. J. Blaeu (1571-1638) and his son John Blaeu, and their work is rare at this day. Mr. P. J. H. Baudet, in his _Leven en werken van W. J. Blaeu_, Utrecht, 1871, reports finding but two pair of his (Blaeu’s) globes (terrestrial and celestial) in Holland. His first editions bore date 1599, but he constantly corrected the copper plates, from which he struck the gores. Muller, of Amsterdam, offered a pair, in 1877, for five hundred Dutch florins, and in his _Books on America_, iii. 164, another at seven hundred and fifty florins. (_Catalogue_, 1877, no. 329.) A pair, dated 1606, was in the Stevens sale, 1881. _Hist. Coll._, i., no. 1335.

I find no trace of the globe of Hondius, 1597, which gives the American discoveries up to that date. See _Davis’s Voyages_ (Hakluyt Society), p. 351. Hondius and Langeren were rivals.

The Legends are as follows:—

1. This land was discovered by John and Sebastian Cabot for Kinge
Henry y^e 7, 1497.
2. Bacalaos.
3. C. Bonavista.
4. C. Raso.
5. C. Britton.
6. I. Sables.
7. I. S. John.
8. Claudia.
9. Comokee.
10. C. Chesepick.
11. Hotorast.
12. La Bermudas.
13. Bahama.
14. La Florida.
15. The Gulfe of Mexico.
16. Virginia.
17. The lacke of Tadenac, the bounds whereof are unknowne.
18. Canada.
19. Hochelague.]

=F.= MOLINEAUX MAP, 1600.—Emeric Molineaux, the alleged maker of this map, belonged to Lambeth, “a rare gentleman in his profession, being therein for divers years greatly supported by the purse and liberality of the worshipful merchant, Mr. William Sanderson.” Captain Markham (_Davis’s Voyages_, Hakluyt Society, London, 1880, pp. xxxiii, lxi, also p. lxxxviii) is of the opinion that the true author is Edward Wright, the mathematician, who perfected and rendered practicable what we know to-day as Mercator’s projection,—first demonstrating it in his Certain Errors in Navigation Detected, 1599, and first introducing its formulæ accurately in the 1600 map. Hakluyt had spoken of the globe by Molineaux in his 1589 edition, but it was not got ready in time for his use. The map followed the globe, but was not issued till about 1600, the discoveries of Barentz in 1596 being the last indicated on it. It measures 16½ × 25 inches. Quaritch in 1875 advanced the theory that the globe of Molineaux was referred to in Shakespeare’s _Twelfth Night_ (act iii. sc. 2), as the “new map.” (Quaritch’s 1879 _Catalogue_, no. 321, book no. 11919),—a theory made applicable to the map and sustained by C. H. Coote in 1878, in _Shakespeare’s “new map” in Twelfth Night_ (also in _Transactions_ of the New Shakspere Society, 1877-79, i. 88-100), and reasserted in the Hakluyt Society’s edition of _Davis’s Voyages_, p. lxxxv. Henry Stevens (_Hist. Coll._ i. 200), however, is inclined to refer Shakespeare’s reference (“the new map with the augmentation of the Indies”) to the “curious little round-face shaped map” in Wytfliet’s _Ptolemæum Augmentum_, 1597.

The Molineaux-Wright map has gained reputation from Hallam’s reference to it in his _Literature of Europe_ as “the best map of the sixteenth century.” It is now accessible in the autotype reproduction which was made by Mr. Quaritch from the Grenville copy of Hakluyt’s _Principall Navigations_ in the British Museum, and which accompanies the Hakluyt Society’s edition of _Davis’s Voyages_. There are nine copies of the map known, as follows: 1. King’s Library. 2. Grenville Library. 3. Cracherode Copy. (These three are in the British Museum.) 4. Admiralty Office. 5. Lenox Library, New York. 6. University of Cambridge. 7. Christie Miller’s Collection. 8. Middle Temple. 9. A copy in Quaritch’s Catalogue, 1881, no. 340, title-number, 6235, which had previously appeared in the Stevens sale, _Hist. Collections_, i. 199. Quaritch held the Hakluyt (3 vols.) with this genuine map at £156, and it is said no other copy had been sold since the Bright sale.

It may be noted that Blundeville, who in his _Exercises_, pp. 204-42, describes the Mercator and Molineaux globes, also, pp. 245-78, gives a long account of a mappamundi by Peter Plancius, dated 1592, of which Linschoten, in 1594, gives a reduction.

=G.= MODERN COLLECTIONS OF EARLY MAPS.—The collections of reproductions of the older maps, showing portions of the American coast, and representing what may be termed the beginnings of modern cartography, are the following:—

JOMARD, E. F. _Les Monuments de la Géographie._ Paris, 1866. The death of Jomard in 1862 (see Memoir by M. de la Roquette, in _Bulletin de la Soc. Géog._ February, 1863, or 5th ser. v. 81, with a portrait; Cortambert’s _Vie et Œuvres de Jomard_, Paris, 1868, 20 pages; and _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, iv. 232, vi. 334) prevented the completion by him of the text which he intended should accompany the plates. M. D’Avezac’s intention to supply it was likewise stayed by his death, in 1875. It proved, however, that Jomard had left behind what he had meant for an introduction to the text; and this was printed in a pamphlet at Paris in 1879, as _Introduction à l’Atlas des Monuments de la Géographie_, edited by E. Cortambert. It is a succinct account of the progress of cartography before the times of Mercator and Ortelius. The atlas contains five maps, of great interest in connection with American discovery:—

The Frankfort Globe, _circa_ 1520.

Juan de la Cosa’s map, 1500.

The Cabot map of 1544.

A French map, made for Henri II.

Behaim’s Globe, 1492.

These reproductions are of the size of the original. Good copies are worth £10 10_s._

SANTAREM, VISCONDE DE. _Atlas Composé de Cartes des XIV^e XV^e XVI^e et XVII^e siècles_, Paris. 1841-53. This was published at the charge of the Portuguese Government, and is the most extensive of modern fac-similes. Copies, which are rarely found complete, owing to its irregular publication over a long period, are worth from $175 to $200. A list of the maps in it is given in Leclerc, _Bibliotheca Americana_, 1878, no. 529; and of them the following are of interest to students of American history:—

51. Mappemonde de Ruysch. This appeared in the Ptolemy of 1508 at Rome, the earliest engraved map of America.

52. Globe of Schoner, and the map in Camer’s edition of Solinus, each of 1520.

53. Mappemonde par F. Roselli, Florence, 1532, and the maps of Sebastian Munster, 1544, and Vadianus, 1546.

The atlas should be accompanied by _Essai sur l’histoire de la Cosmographie et de la Cartographie pendant le Moyen Age, et sur les progrès de la Géographie après les grandes découvertes du XV^e siècle_. 3 vols. Paris. 1849-52.

KUNSTMANN, F. _Entdeckung Amerikas nach den ältesten Quellen geschichtlich dargestellt._ Munich, 1859. This was published under the auspices of the Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences, and is accompanied by a large atlas, giving fac-similes of the principal Spanish and Portuguese maps of the sixteenth century, including one of the California coast, and that of the east coast of North America, by Thomas Hood, 1592. Copies are worth from $15 to $20.

LELEWEL, J. _Géographie du Moyen Age étudiée._ Bruxelles. 1852. 3 vols. 8º. With a small folio atlas, of thirty-five plates, containing fifty-two maps. The text is useful; but, as a rule, the maps are on too small a scale for easy study.

A series of photographic reproductions of early maps is now appearing at Venice, under the title of _Raccolta di Mappamondi e Carte nautiche del XIII al XVI secolo_. There are two which have a particular interest in connection with the earliest explorations in America; namely,—

16. _Carta da navigare._ Attributed to ALBERTO CANTINO, supposed to be A.D. 1501-03, and to illustrate the third voyage of Columbus. The original is in the Bibl. Estense at Modena. [Not yet published.]

17. AGNESE, BATTISTA. _Fac-simile delle Carte nautiche dell’ anno 1554, illustrate da Teobaldo Fischer._ Venezia. 1881.

The editor, Fischer, is Professor of Geography at Kiel. The original is in the Bibliotheca Marciana, at Venice. The sheets which throw light upon the historical geography of America are these:—

XVII. 4. North America northward to the Penobscot and the Gulf of California; and the west coast of South America to 15° south; then blank, till the region of Magellan’s Straits is reached.

XVII. 5. North America, east coast from Labrador south; Central America; South America, all of east coast, and west coast, as in XVII. 4.

XVII. 33. The World,—the American continent much as in XVII. 4 and 5.

We note the following other maps of Agnese:—

_a._ Portolano in the British Museum, bearing date 1536. _Index to MSS. in British Museum_, 19,927. If this is the one Kohl (_Discovery of Maine_, p. 293) refers to as no. 5,463, MS. Department British Museum, it is signed and dated by the author.

_b._ Portolano, dated 1536, in the royal library at Dresden, of ten plates,—one being the World, the western half of which, showing America, is given reduced by Kohl, p. 292. It resembles XVII. 33, above, but is not so well advanced, and retains a trace of Verrazano’s Sea, which makes New England an isthmus. It wants the California peninsula, a knowledge of whose discovery had hardly yet reached Venice.

_c._ Portolano, in the Bodleian Library, Oxford; thought by Kohl, who gives a sketch (pl. xv. c), to be the work of Agnese, since it closely resembles, in its delineations of the American continent, that Venetian’s notions. This, perhaps, is earlier than the previous map; for it puts a strait leading to the Western sea, where Cartier had just before supposed he had found such in the St. Lawrence.

_d._ Map in the archives of the Duke of Coburg-Gotha, marked “Baptista Agnes fecit, Venetiis, 1543, die 18 Febr.” Kohl (pl. xvii. 3) gives from it a draft of the eastern coast of the United States.

_e._ Map, like _d_, in the Huth Library at London.

_f._ Portolano in the Royal Library, Dresden. It shows California. Kohl, p. 294.

_g._ Portolano in the British Museum, dated 1564. _Index to MSS._ 25,442.

Kohl says (p. 293) there are other MS. maps of Agnese in London, Paris, Gotha, and Dresden, not here enumerated.

A few other books, less extensive and more accessible, deserve attention in connection with the study of comparative early American cartography.

HENRY STEVENS. _History and Geographical Notes of the Early Discoveries in America, 1453-1530_, New Haven, 1869, with five folding plates of photographic fac-similes of sixteen of the most important maps.

DR. J. G. KOHL. _Discovery of Maine_ (_Documentary History of Maine_, 1), with reduced sketches, not in fac-simile, of many early charts of our eastern seaboard.

CHARLES P. DALY. _Early History of Cartography, or what we know of Maps and Map-making before the time of Mercator_,—being his annual address, 1879, before the American Geographical Society. The maps are unfortunately on a very much reduced scale.

* * * * *

NOTE.—Since this chapter was completed Henry Harrisse’s _Jean et Sébastien Cabot_, Paris, 1882, has given us the fullest account of Agnese’s cartographical labors, with much other useful information about the maps from 1497 to 1550; and George Bancroft (_Magazine of American History_, 1883, pp. 459, 460), in defence of his latest revision, has controverted Dr. De Costa’s statement (Ibid., 1883, p. 300), that Gosnold had no permission from Ralegh, and has set forth his reasons for believing that Waymouth ascended the George’s River. De Costa replied to Bancroft in the _Mag. of Amer. Hist._, Aug., 1883, p. 143.