Untitled

1¾ III OF: PLANIMETRIC MAPPING OF WORLD CONTINENTAL LAND SURFACES

Mary Lynette Larsgaard

Map and Imagery Laboratory, Davidson Library

University of California, Santa Barbara

mary@sdc.ucsb.edu

Planimetric Mapping: A.D. 1600-1700

To this day many of the maps of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are in some respects monumental. However much may have been added since in precision of measurement, in many ways we have retained the chorologic content as formulated in this period beginning the "Age of Surveys."

Carl Ortwin Sauer

Overview

The search for an accurate method of determining longitude continued. On land, longitude could be determined by observing Jupiter's moons; an observer somewhere other than Paris could:

have a table showing the local times at Paris of the six critical positions during the immersions and emersions of Jupiter's first satellite as it orbited in front and behind the planet. He would observe the same phenomena and note the local sun times and then at the rate of 15 degrees per hour, he could calculate his angular distance west from Paris, that is, his longitude.

(Arthur H. Robinson 1973, p. 450).

The method was formidable and cumbersome, but it worked - though only on land:

Astronomic observations of the quality required to observe Jupiter's satellites together with the operation of the pendulum clock that was needed to keep track of the local solar time were simply out of the question on shipboard.

(Ibid.)

In the seventeenth century, map publishers (especially those dealing with atlases, which had emerged as the dominant cartogaphic form) were extremely busy. Some, like W. J. Blaeu, "Cartographer to the Republic," were given the right to examine seamen's records (Raisz 1948, p.27). Many atlases were published to satisfy intellectual curiosity or as status symbols:

Patricians of the period had a propensity for pompous display, not least in their libraries, and in this respect Blaeu's Atlas Maior suited their rather snobbish tastes very well. The customers demanded heavy paper, large format, and luxury bindings."

(Koeman 1970, pp. 41).

Notable was the "super atlas," six feet high, composed of 35 to 40 wall maps, commissioned about 1660 by Prince Johan Maurits of Nassau as a gift for Frederick Wilhelm, the Great Elector (Bagrow 1964, p. 183). This noble predecessor to today's coffee-table books did the latter one better; with the mere addition of legs, it WAS a coffee table. For those with smaller purse and smaller living rooms, pocket atlases were produced (Ibid., p. 184).

French cartography, principally under the Sansons (who published some 600 titles), began to establish itself firmly, turning out a more scientific, less decorated map than did the Dutch. In 1682, Jean Dominique Cassini laid out a map with a fairly accurate longitudinal grid on the floor of the Paris Observatory (Raisz 1948, pp. 29, 34).

Exploration and discovery on land continued at a brisk rate, the nations of western Europe working in North and South America and south and southeast Asia, while the Russians traveled about north and northeast Asia (Baker 1967, p. 192).

Planimetric Mapping of Africa: A.D. 1600-1700

By 1600, the mouths of some of the continent's large rivers had been entered and explored some way source-ward (Bettex 1960, front endpapers). But although many maps of Africa were published (notable among them G. Blaeu's 1648-1665 maps) accuracy was still confined to the coastal areas of north Africa, and no real advances were made. Central Africa was shown as a region of lakes, larger and further south than previously, and with distances of interior places form the coast exaggerated (Heawood 1965, pp. 143, 1966; Langlands 1971, p. 31; Ravenstein 1891, p. 299). Perhaps one reason for this was such occurences as the languishing of Portuguese enterprise, and of travel in general, the former due to liquidated missions (Penrose 1955, p. 140). Maps from Blaeu's 1635 atlas served as type maps for a time (Nordenskiold 1897, p. 132). Sadly, this and the map in the 1649 Atlas Maior were, except for the coastline, based mainly on speculation (Koeman 1970, p. 82).

Planimetric Mapping of Australia and New Zealand: A.D. 1600-1700

Theoretical cartography of Australia slowly began to fade out at the beginning of the seventeenth century due to the Dutch exploration and discovery that proceeded through to the late eighteenth century. On November 20, 1605 (or 1606), the Dutch ship Duyfkin (Duyfken; "dove"), under the command of Willem Jansz and Jan Lodewycksz van Roosengin, entered the Gulf of Carpentaria; its occupants sighted the coast of Australia (Tooley 1965, p. 3; Ingleton 1958, p. 486). In 1616, the west coast was discovered by the Eendracht, under the command of Dirck Hartog. There were apparently numerous "haphazard contacts," especially of the west coast (which was near the sailing routes between the Netherlands and the East Indies), during the first quarter of the century, some of which discoveries (such as those by the Pera in 1623) were rapidly incorporated into the map in spite of Dutch anxiety to keep such discoveries secret (Schilder 1976, pp. 54, 96, 197). In 1627 the Gulden Zeepaard and the Nuytsland commenced exploration of the south coast; it was some years before these discoveries appeared on the map (Tooley 1965, p. 3).

Jodocus Hondius published a map in his 1633 Atlas ou Representation du monde universel in which a part of the Australian coast (Cape York and the York Peninsula) is shown; by this date - indeed, by 1627 - the Dutch had already delineated much of the west coast, because of the Dutch practice of "clearly and precisely" (Skelton 1958, p. 308) laying down charts of areas visited (Ingleton 1958, p. 486; Schilder 1972).

The great voyages of Abel Janszoon Tasman took place in 1642-1643 and 1644; not only was he to discover both Tasmania and New Zealand in late 1643 (although Hocken 1984, p. 634, believes that Jean Rotz had reversed islands, and that New Zealand was actually known to Europeans in about 1550), he also marked, in a circular tour, the limits of Australia except for parts of the southern and eastern coast, and named the whole New Holland. No one else has ever so dominated the exploration of a continent (Crone 1948a, p. 257; Tooley 1979b, p. x; Tooley 1965, p. 3). But cartographic results of the voyages did not at first receive a wide circulation, and contemporary knowledge of Australia from 1630 to 1770 is found only on general maps (Tooley 1965, p. 3). Tasman's work became generally incorporated into Dutch atlases and elsewhere in the 1660s; within 20 years of discovery, half of the south coast, all of the west coast, and the west side of the Cape York peninsula had been laid out (Penrose 1955, p. 212). A chart by Thevenot in 1663 (the first French map of Australia) shows a fairly good coastline except for the east and southeast corner; the east would remain unexplored for over a century (Skelton 1958, p. 221; Schilder 1972, p. 43; Tooley 1979b, p. xi).

Planimetric Mapping of Eurasia: A.D. 1600-1700

Asia

In the seventeenth century Dutch and English ships were present in respectable numbers, so cartography of the area was no longer derived solely from Portuguese and Spanish sources (Skelton 1958, p. 19). The Dutch were a powerful presence; in 160s the Dutch East India Company was established, and geographical information funneled back to Amsterdam's cartographers (Bricker and Tooley 1968, p. 119).

Willem Janszoon Blaeu published a large map of Asia based on Gastaldi in 1608, in which topographical detail for Arabia is brought up to date. Nicolas Sanson's 1652 Arabia map shows the next improvement (Tibbets 1954, p. 21). Matteo Ricci's third edition of his map of China shows Korea as oblong and includes all the main islands of Japan; it gives the archipelago its twist and separates the islands by 90 degrees of longitude from North America. It was some time before this information made its way onto European maps (Washburn 1952, p. 234; Szczesniak 1954, p. 130). Dudley made nautical charts from 1606 to 1636 but rarely depicted continental interiors (Joseph Schutte 1969, p. 30).

Between 1617 and 1622 charts of the coast of the Indian archipelago, Australia, Sumatra, and the southeast and east Asiatic islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans began to appear (Lister 1970, p. 42). A 1619 map of the Mogul Empire, by William Baffin (from information supplied by Sir Thomas Roe), was the most accurate to that date (Tooley 1961, p. 52). A 1621 map of Hokkaido was made by a visiting Sicilian Jesuit priest, Girolamo de Angelis, the first European to visit that island (Kitagawa 1950, p. 110). In 1631, Hondius inserted Korea on a map, finally as a peninsula (Tooley 1961, p. 106). Then, in 1636, and until about 1841, Japan closed its doors to foreigners; for over 200 years, cartographers had to rely on sporadic, isolated information. The northern islands of the Japanese archipelago were first charted in 1643 (Kish 1947, pp. 101, 106). Maps of Japan, reasonably accurate and detailed, would appear in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and mistakes in mapping would be due not to ignorance and speculation, but to inaccurately mapped discoveries (Kish 1949, p. 46; Campbell 1967, p. 4; Washburn 1952, p. 236). W. J. Blaeu's world map of 1648, the highest achievement of Dutch cartography, was notable for its reasonably accurate China coast (Crone 1968, p. 115).

In 1655, the Atlas Sinensis, the first European atlas of China, based on Chinese sources, with maps by Martino Martini (an Italian Jesuit), was issued; it remained a standard work until the early eighteenth century (Tooley 1961, p. 106).

There were still some aberrations on the map of Asia; for example New Guinea was shown as joined on to Cape York in Australia in 1670 (Baynton-Williams 1969, p. 142), and there were still considerable problems with the geography of China, perhaps most notably that no on knew what size it was. Sinological studies in the second half of the century contributed greatly to the reliable representation of China on maps (Szczesniak 1958, pp. 117-33). Between 1671 and 1685 Ferdinand Verbiest (1627-1688), appointed Summu Praefectus Academiae Astronomicae by K'ang-hsi, made a world map (printed in Peking) from Chines sources for China, and from European sources for the rest of the world (Lister 1970, p. 102). In 1699 the Jesuits, sent by Louis XIV to K'ang-hsi, appeared in force in China and began to apply themselves conscientiously to the mapping of that nation (Heawood 1965, p. 139).

Europe

(NOTE: For detailed works, see especially Pietkiewicz 1960 and Mauro 1963 (both in French); for Sweden see Bratt 1968 (in German))

In the seventeenth century, Germany produced few maps of note, while the Low countries were reaching the heights in cartography. Topographical surveys were beginning to be carried on throughout Europe; in Italy a fresh impetus was given to regional mapping by V.M. Coronelli, a Venetian cosmographer and polymath (Bagrow 1964, p. 146). In Switzerland, Hans Conrad Gyger was making a series of regional maps showing originality in method of depicting relief, and precision of survey (Tooley 1961, p. 41).

In Scandinavia the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) had exerted a considerable scientific influence; both Swedes and Danes wanted more information on the northernmost regions of Scandinavia, a desire fulfilled by Simon van Mulingen's 1601 map and Anders Bure's map of Lapland in 1611 (Bagrow 1964, p. 167).

In England, the counties were very ably mapped from 1610 to 1614 by John Speed (1552-1629), a historian who compiled maps, beginning ca. 1603, from other men's data, and who "gave due acknowledgment where possible - which cannot be said of many later geographers' (Tooley 1961, p. 68). In the main, the shape of the British Isles was not to alter from the death of Queen Elizabeth (1603) to the accession of Victoria (1837); there were some "piecemeal alterations," with the west coasts of Scotland and Ireland the last areas to be satisfactorily charted (Campbell 1970, pp. 4-6). Speed's "Theatre of Empire, Great Britain of 1611" served as a basis for maps of Ireland until 1685 and Sir William Petty's work (Michael Corbet Andrews 1924, p. 30; John Harwood Andrews 1962, p. 237).

Blaeu's 1608 Licht der Zeevaert, his first sea atlas, was the most important atlas at the beginning of the seventeenth century; it contained 12 maps of the northern coasts (Tool;ey 1952, p. 128). A 1613 map of the Baltic by Adrianus Vens, issued by Hondius Junior, was the best map of Scandinavia and the Baltic in its time, and was adopted in the Mercator and Hondius atlases from 1632 on (Keuning 1948, p. 66; Tooley 1952, p. 128). Also in 1613 appeared a splendid 1:1,293,000-scale map of Lithuania in four sections - the Radziwil-Makowski map - which remained for 150 years "the last word" in the mapping of that area (Buczek 1966, pp. 58-63).

In 1626 the first important separate map of Sweden appeared, by Anders Bure (Andreas Buraeus), with the title 'Orbis Arctoi Nova et Accurata Delineatio'" (Tooley 1952, p. 128). This map served as the norm for representing Sweden and Finland for more than 100 years (Suomalaisen 1967, p. 13).

By 1650, Scandinavia and Iceland were familar corners of Europe (Bjornbo and Petersen 1908, p. 3). Matters were not going so well in Poland; between 1653 and 1753, ano major or original map of Poland was published (Buczek 1966, p. 80). The first national atlas of Scotland was issued by Blaeu as volume V of the Atlas Novae in 1654 (Tooley 1961, p. 58). Far better outlines of Ireland (formerly long and narrow, and confused in detail) appeared on maps in the second half of the century, and the interior was filled by the "Down" Survey of Ireland carried on by Sir William Petty, beginning about 1655, resulting in a map in 1673 (engraved in Amsterdam) and the first atlas of Ireland, his Hiberniae Delineatio, in 1685 (Tooley 1961, p. 93; Michael Corbet Andrews 1924, pp. 31-33).

Almost the only exciting work being done in England from 1650 to 1750 was that by Hailey, in thematic cartography, and by John Ogilby (cosmographer to King Charles II), who - cying in 1676 - left to his grandson the task of completing the atlas he had begun in 1669 (Hyde 1976, p. 115). To finish off the century in Europe, a new map of Hungary came out, with the country the correct shape, and the Pyrennees no longer terra incognita (Irmedi-Molnar 1964, p. 59; Froehlich 1960, p. 94).

Russia

Early Russian cartography cleaved to the tradition of maps being kept secret from foreigners; in spite of this, the century is marked by native Russian cartographical information finding its way west and influencing European mapmakers (Remezov 1958, p. 7; Bagrow and Castner 1975a, p. 116). At this stage, Russian cartographers were producing a rectangular-shaped Siberia map; exploration of that area took place primarily during the seventeenth century, meaning that all previous maps were in the main based on legendary sources (Bagrow 1952, p. 83). Seventeenth-century Russian maps are marked by an execution and technique comparable to that of cartographers in western Europe during the Middle Ages (Anoutchine 1896, p. 707).

By 1610, Russian fur traders had reached the Yenisei, and by 1638 "the Russians were on the shores of the sea of Okhotsk" (Newby 1975, p. 146). During the intervening time period, Hessel Gerritsz published a map of Russia depicting the area with somewhat more exactitude regarding details than had formerly appeared (Keuning 1949, p. 51), and between 1626 and 1627 the Bol'shoy Chertyozh was redrawn, but with very little new information on Siberia, the upper course of the Ob still not known. The text accompanying the map does describe the shores of the White Sea and the Arctic Ocean in great detail, traders having voyaged hopefully to Novaya Zemlaya (Bagrow and Castner 1976b, pp. 19-20). By 1647 the outline of the Sea of Okhotsk from the Amur to the Gulf of Penjinsk was generally known; by 1648 some knowledge of the extreme northeast had been obtained (Brietfuss 1939, p. 87).

There were no maps of Manchuria and central Asia until the mid-seventeenth century; at this point all of the Amur was finally mapped, and only the northeast section of Siberia remained unmapped (Bagrow 1964, p. 203; Bagrow and Castner 1975b, p. 22). Siberia was mapped schematically in 1667 by Semyon Godienov (Lister 1970, p. 42; Bagrow and Castner 1975b, p. 24). Between 1663 and the early eighteenth century the Remezovs (Ulijas and Semjon Ulanovic) produced detailed maps of Siberia (Atobe 1969, p. 9). A coy of Wijas' 1667 map was taken by Sparvenfeldt to Sweden and offered to Blaeu, but was never published (Bagrow 1952, p. 84). Throughout the century, the map of Siberia was continuously revised, as the Russian government concentrated on producing maps of newly opened regions and of Russia's southern boundaries (Goldenberg 1971, pp. 11-12). Outside of Russia, a 1687 map issued in Amsterdam incorporated much of the Russian information (Breitfuss 1939, p. 87). Finally, at the end of the century, 1697-1699, the Russians forged cross continent to Kamchatka, finally to be shown on maps as the peninsula that it is (Bagrow and Castner 1975b, p. 22).

Planimetric Mapping of Central and South America: A.D. 1600-1700

By 1600, the Chilean coast, all of Colombia's coastline and most of its interior (at least in general), and the Peruvian and Brazilian coasts had been added to the map of South America (Bettex 1960, front end papers). While the coasts were relatively well charted, the interior was not, and cartography of it was marked by a persistence of errors and little in the way of additions toponymy, largely because of the prevailing practice of copying (Larrea 1977, p. 25). From this century through the nineteenth was a time for exploration of the interior. The chief discovery of interest, made in 1615, was that Tierra del Fuego was an island (Nakamura 1963, p. 49).

The first map of Paraguay, "Paraguaria vulgo Paraguay cum adjacentibus" by Joannes Blaeu, appeared in 1645 (Decoud 1904, p. 45). Alonso de Ovalde's large 1646 map of Chile was a prototype of maps of Chile published in France, Holland, and Gremany, from Sanson's Le Chili (1656) ti de l'Isle's (Delisle) 1780 Carte du Paraguay du Chili (Wroth 1959, p. 95). Willem Mogg's 1671 map of Surinam was the first printed map of that country, and indeed the first map, printed or manuscript of any part of it, showing as it does the settled areas of the Surinam and Commewijne Rivers (Bubberman 1973, plate 8; Wekker 1966, p. 196).

The Spaniards and Portuguese actively mapped their New World colonies - roughly the area of Mexico, southern California, Florida, Central America to Panama, Peru, the Chilean coast, Venezuela, Rio de la Plata, the east and south coasts of Brazil and parts of the Amazon Valley - in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. for purposes of land allocation and the establishment of land title (Bagrow 1964, p. 19). This may have been in some minor way assisted in Mexico by the extensive mapping by the Aztecs, although since the majority of these artifacts were destroyed (on religious grounds) soon after the arrival of the Spaniards, this is dubious (Eulalia Guzman 1939, pp. 1-5).

Planimetric Mapping of North America: A.D. 1600-1700

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the exploration of North America was carried out in five main areas:

1. St. Lawrence Valley to the foot of the Rocky Mountains and Hudson Bay; down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico (by the French)

2. Atlantic seaboard to the Appalachians (seventeenth century) to the Mississippi in the eighteenth century (by the English)

3. from the French colony near the mouth of the Mississippi River west of that river, making contact with the Spaniards

4. New Mexico to California; other parts of the southwest United States (by the Spaniards)

5. the far north, from Hudson Bay to the Rockies and Arctic; south and west of the bay

(Baker 1967, p. 205)

The French were predominant in the exploration of Canada from the early seventeenth through the mid-eighteenth century (Hay and Davidson 1951, p. 24). By 1600, "Canada had acquired, in rough cartographic form her present three ocean boundaries," but exploration was only beginning the Arctic and had not even started in the west (Canada. Public Archives 1957, p. xxiv). Between 1600 and 1620 the French and English carried on something approaching systematic and accurate surveys of the New England coast, down to the New Jersey coast, which latter was almost unknown until the early 1600s (McManis 1972, p. 2; Snyder 1973, p. 7).

The standout explorer of the century was Samuel de Champlain, born in 1567, who "opened the path of discovery" in the northern interior (Heawood 1965, p. 101). Champlain began his explorations in 1603, founding Quebec in that year ("French origin" 1977, pp. 1-2). The English and Dutch were also active in the early years of the century, with Henryk Hudson in 1607 on the east coast of Greenland, prior to 1610 on the coast of New Jersey, and in 1610 discovering the bay that bears his name (Hobbs 1949, p. 19; Snyder 1973, p. 267; Peters 1936a, p. 6; Lanton 1935, p. 3). Captain John Smith made a manuscript map in 1612 of Virginia, using crosses to show how far inland he had traveled (Kish 1978, p. 11).

Champlain issued a rather crude map, the first to show Lake Champlain, in 1612, and a revised edition in 1613 incorporating Hudson's information (covering the area north from the Chesapeake Bay up to the Great Lakes, Nova Scotia, and the Gulf of the St. Lawrence, with Georgian Bay clearly shown but at the wrong angle) (Gohm 1972, p. 55; Karrow 1977, p [3]). De Vaulx's 1613 map of Newfoundland showed it as more elongated than did Champlain's (O'Dea 1971, p. 12).

In 1616 William Baffin was on the west coast of Greenland and in Baffin Bay (Hobbs 1949, p. 19; Kidd 1977, p. 7). Captain Smith's map of New England of the same year is regarded as the oldest sectional map of that area (Thoreau 1965, p. 284).

By about 1620, geographic data for New England was accurate, although some misconceptions persisted (McManis 1972, p. 2). The latter could be said also of Baja California; an English map of 1625 portrayed it as an island, and so it would remain throughout the century (Skelton 1958, p. 85). Another error that would hang on, from 1625 to about 1740, was the Great Lakes being the source of the Mississippi River. The year 1625 also marked the beginning of a quiet period in Arctic exploration (Heawood 1965, p. 46). A map of that year of Newfoundland by Mason led to a pronounced improvement in depiction of the area by other mapmakers, such as Blaeu, but also to the closing of the bays in the northeast coast and the broadening of the north half. Mason's map shows signs of his actually having surveyed at least part of the coast himself. The development of the depiction of Newfoundland was somewhat erratic, with a 1602 map more accurate than some issued in the second half of the century (O'Dea 1971, pp. 14, 39).

The "sanest" map of the northwest coast of North America produced in this century (dated 1630) was by Jean de Laet (Wagner 1937, p. 94). De Laet's map stops at 43 degrees N, noting straightforwardly that names beyond that point were imaginary. One of the basic problems of mapping during this and succeeding centuries was that occasionally records of discoveries were lost. For example, the discoveries of Vizcaino on the northwest coast during the first decade or so of the century, reported in Torquemada's Monarchia Indiana, were not used for a quarter of a century for the simple reason that almost the entire edition had been shipped to Mexico on one vessel - which sank. And the old custom of those knowing not telling continued; the Spanish were chary about letting out any sort of information, with the result that seventeenth-century Spanish maps of the northwest coast are almost unknown. Thus mapmakers had only other cartographers' maps to copy until about 1650; in the interim, they alleviated the boredom by shifting names about or inventing new ones (Wagner 1937, pp. 103, 130, 132).

The 1632 map of New France by Champlain is a masterpiece, providing one of the first authentic delineations of Nova Scotia and the St. Lawrence basin and Great Lakes region, from Hudson Bay in the north to Chesapeake Bay in the south, plus a recognizable New England coast (Bagrow 1964, p. 193; Thoreau 1965, p. 282; see Trudel 1977 for commentary, in French, on this map). New France, it may be well to note here, is taken to mean the St. Lawrence basin including tributaries in New York, the Mississippi Valley, and the St. Lawrence to Hudson Bay (Crouse 1924, p. 8). Later on in the century French explorers would provide information on the great river systems - the Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri - south to the Gulf and west to the foothills of the Rockies (Bagrow 1964, p. 193).

The next landmark map, the first to show all five of the Great Lakes (with the three eastern lakes generally correct and eastern Canad's size shape as they are), is Ameriqve septentrionale (Paris, 1650) by Nicolas Sanson. With commendable honesty, the cartographer left the areas west of Fort William-Port Arthur blank. Sources were probably manuscript maps made by missionaries, who had been active in the area for about 25 years (Thomas R. Smith 1977b, p. 2; Oppen 1975, p. 32; Karrow 1977, p [4]; Peters 1936a, p. 6).

The general shape of Delaware Bay and River is given in Nicholas Visscher's Novi Belgi Novaeque Angliae nec non Partis Virginiae Tabula, ca. 1651; the first separate map of Delaware appeared in about 1654 (Wroth 1950, p. 91; Kohlin 1948). Sanson issued other important maps in 1656, one of New France, which again used Jesuit missionary manuscript maps as a source; this map did not show the upper waters of the Mississippi - although Radisson and Groseilliers had discovered them in about 1655 (Crouse 1924, pp. 25, 97, 99). By 1658 such areas as the coast of Labrador were well represented, and exploration turned toward the interior of Canada (Lanton 1935, p. 4).

The incorporation of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1670 signalled the starting up again of Arctic exploration; discoveries made from Bay outposts were quickly incorporated into maps issued by London publishers such as Arrowsmith, the official cartographer of the company (Klemp 1976, p. 13; Kidd 1977, p. 8; Cumming 1974a, p. 16). The same year saw a map of Virginia, and a map by Pere Francis Collier de Casson that was the first "decent map of Lake Ontario and the first to show any detail at all" of Lake Erie (Karrow 1977, p. [4]). A map by Pere Claude Jean Allouex in 1671 shows amazing correctness of detail of Lake Superior; "many maps published 150 years lately are distinctly inferior in their depiction" of that lake (Karrow 1977, p. [5]; Karpinski 1946, p. 518).

Louis Joliet, a fur trader, and Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit, set out to explore along the Mississippi in 1672; the two were the first white men to see the region that is now Iowa, and made the first accurate maps of the Kentucky-Virginia area (Diana J. Fox 1978, p. 77; Sames 1976). Joliet's 1674 map became a mother map for the Missouri Valley (Hamilton 1934, pp. 645-47). W. Faithorne issued the first "satisfactory" map of Maryland in 1673, made from the ten-year personal surveys of Augustin Herrman (Fite and Freeman 1926, p. 151).

Father Kino made a map of California in 1683, most detailed and exact around the bay of La Paz in Baja California (Burrus 1965, p. 61). La Salle's explorations were shown in a 1683 map of North America by Jean Baptiste Louis Franquelin, which gave a new and "rather intricate" picture of the Missouri Valley (as far as it went) (Hamilton 1934, pp. 647-51). Franquelin's 1684 and 1688 maps swing the Mississippi River far to the west to avoid the mythical Bay of Espiritu Santo; he used Father Dablon's account for his rendering of Lake Superior (Crouse 1924, pp. 93, 136). There is a considerable contrast between the correctly mapped parts of New France and the barely known lands to the west and north (Kish 1978, p. 29). The explorations in northern North America of Samuel Hearne and Alexander Mackenzie resulted in the deletion from the map of fictitious passages (e.g., the Strait of Anian) and the improvement of detail of the rivers between Lake Athabasca and the shore of Hudson Bay (Heawood 1965, p. 344; Skelton 1958, p. 131). Baja California ceased being an island after about 1698, when Guillaume de l'Isle, using Father Kino's reports, began making maps that showed it connected firmly to the mainland (Charles H. Carey 1929, p. 27).

By the close of the eighteenth century, the broad outlines of the geography of the vast region between Hudson Bay, the Great Lakes, the Arctic Ocean and the Rocky Mountains had been sketched in (Heawood 1965, pp. 345, 348). In the southeast United States, a long, swampy savanna was placed north of a great lake in the piedmont, with a large barren, sandy region called the Arenosa desert to the east (Cumming 1938, p. 477). But generally From the end of the sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth century, maps of the southeast United States were based on "actual though crude surveys," with fuller detail than in the sixteenth century (Cumming 1958, p. 2). And by 1700 the south coast of Hudson Bay and areas around the Great Lakes had been explored (Pearson 1974, p. 115).