1¾ VII OF: PLANIMETRIC MAPPING OF WORLD CONTINENTAL LAND SURFACES

by

Mary Lynette Larsgaard

Map and Imagery Laboratory, Davidson Library

University of California, Santa Barbara

mary@sdc.ucsb.edu

Planimetric Mapping: Summary and Conclusion

El mapa geografico surgio espontaneo en todos los pueblos, formandose poco a poco y con dificultad, a traves de los siglos, paralelamente con el progreso de la civilizacion.

(Anesi 1943, p. 187)

Summary

Classical Western cartography (from about the third century B.C. to the third century A.D.) was concerned with such basics as the establishment of the idea of a grid pattern, the measurement of a terrestrial degree, and the construction of world maps with relatively little cosmological bias, the latter notably by Marinus of Tyre and Ptolemy of Alexandria. This auspicious beginning was followed, in the third to the thirteenth centuries, by a period not merely of standstill but of regression, as the medieval West retreated to maps of fantasy.

By the beginning of the fourteenth century, cartography was emerging from the Dark Ages, pushed and shoved by the ever-practical demands of seamen. The portolano charts of this century laid down the general coastal outline of Europe and the islands lying off it with "remarkable accuracy" (Bagrow 1964, p. 144), a phrase that the mapmakers of that time might have found highly insulting. Doubtless some future generation of Homo sapiens will view the twentieth century's mapping products with that same kindly condescension.

The exploring literature of the Age of Discovery and succeeding years was not only "the means of spreading the news of the discoveries, but was also of great importance in the life and letters of the times" (Penrose 1955, p. 326). The great fifteenth and sixteenth century voyages of discovery, leading as they did to a rapid expansion of geographical knowledge, speeded up the development of cartography and made it more international in outlook (Lister 1970, p. 26). At this point in planimetric mapping progress, the most important element was favorable winds.

Never in history did man's conception of the known world change more rapidly than it did around 1500, an occurrence effected not only by the Great Discoveries but also by the invention of printing and engraving, and by the rediscovery of Ptolemy's Geographia (Raisz 1948, p. 19). Mapping of the coasts of the New World, at least of the eastern portions, and of the coasts of some areas in the Far East was carried on during the sixteenth century.

In the seventeenth century, maps were slowly being revised to incorporate the newest information, and - in a move appreciated by seamen and serious-minded geographers but mourned by children of all ages - gaps in knowledge on a map were left blank instead of being filled with fantastic beasts and imaginary places. In the second half of the cenury an interest in more precise measurement and location manifested itself, perhaps because a slight lull in major discoveries allowed cartographers time to sit and think, doubtless a pleasant change from the years immediately previous, when a pencil with a large eraser would have been the best tool to use for drawing a map of the world. The French and the British, in this and the following century, showed a great deal of interest in more precise measurement and better instrumentation. By the end of the seventeenth century, the continental outlines - south and east Asia, Africa, the new World, a fragment of northern Australia, and all of Europe - were known with reasonable accuracy, but outside of Europe those outlines were filled in with half- or tenth-truths; Central and South America were hazily known, and there was some minor exploration of Asia and North America, especially the latter.

By the end of the eighteenth century the great work of exploration in the Pacific, and indeed in the world (excluding Polar regions), was completed as far as coastlines were concerned, so that the basic outlines of the world were at last known (Baker 1967, pp. 272; Tooley 1968, p. 56). Remaining to be explored were the interiors of Australia, New Guinea, northeast Asia, Africa, some of northwest and far northern Canada, South America, and the Poles.

In the nineteenth century all the major islands of the sea were charted, Antarctica discovered, the interiors of all continental land masses except Antarctica generally explored. Explorers at last went on expeditions equipped with fairly accurate instruments for determination of location (Crone 1968, p. 105). In the first half of the century, prominent accomplishments were the survey of the Indian peninsula, the Russian advance into Siberia and southwest Asia, the solving of the Niger's pattern, the exploration of the Murray-Darling river systems in Australia, the search for the Northwest Passage, and the firming up of the coastal outlines of North America (Baker 1967, pp. 489-90). The most distinct turning point in the progress of exploration and thus of mapping came in the mid-eighteenth century; after this date, exploration was especially vigorous in central Asia, central Africa, central Australia, the East Indies, and the North Polar regions.

By 1900, areas untrampled by European feet were few and very far between - Antarctica, the North Pole, portions of north and west Canada (especially the Rockies), Amazon basin tributary interfluves, small portions of the Sahara, interior New Guinea, central south Asia (e.g., Nepal, Tibet, interior Mongolia), parts of Saudi Arabia (notably the Rub'al Khali), and some small portions of central Africa and central west Australia.

Conclusion

There is a significant relationship between inventions and discoveries, and the production of maps. The spherical form of the Earth necessitated the development of some grid system, made up of parallels and meridians; the compass helped in the development of portolans; the Age of Discoveries led to improved nautical charts; printing and engraving led to prolific sixteenth-century (and thereafter, in ever increasing amounts) publication of maps; triangulation and better surveying made possible the great national surveys of the nineteenth century; engraving and color printing have allowed twentieth-century maps to carry considerably more information at less cost than black-and-white or hand-colored maps; and remote sensing has speeded up mapping considerably (Raisz 1937b, p. 9).

The history of cartography is marked by an increase in accuracy of determination of distance, location, and direction, and by an increase in comprehensiveness of map content (Crone 1968, p. 14). The European style of mapping was, from about the fourteenth century on, characterized initially by the appearance of coastlines, oriented on a latitude/longitude grid (Nakamura 1963, p. 54). Maritime survey almost invariably preceded and was far in advance of land survey; land maps once made remained static until a new type appeared, while sea charts were of necessity constantly revised. Mapmaking followed sea power and wealth, with a loss of either leading to a decline in maps produced in a given country (Tooley 1961, pp. 47, 130). Cartographic progress has been related to mercantile and colonial ambitions of successive historical periods; portolan charts, for example, developed in the series of mercantile communities on the shores of the Mediterranean, and nations seem to produce the best maps when they are at the peak of their power (Bricker and Tooley 1968, pp. 5-6). The history of geographic discovery is the history of contacts between nature and man; mapping is an attempt to define those contacts in an elegant graphic shorthand (Baker 1967, p. 493). But although there is a natural connection between the two:

The relationship is not always the one that seems most natural today. In the past the mapmakers and the adventurers set about their work from such different points of view and with such different backgrounds that they were often at odds. Sometimes the scholars were ahead of the adventurers and sometimes they were behind. We think it natural today that a man should climb a new mountain ... and on his return should report his findings. We suppose that these become part of subsequently issued maps. Sometimes it actually works out this way.

(Outhwaite 1938, unpaged introduction)

Appendix A: Lag Time Between Discovery and Mapping of a Feature

The lag time between discovery of a geographic feature and its appearance on a map decreases as transportation and communication become more rapid, sophisticated, and widespread, so that by 1900 the lag time was seldom more than a year:

1375 Catalan map using information gathered by Marco Polo, reported about 1290

1442-1448 world map by Leardo, 80-100 years out of date

1448 Andreas Bianco portolan chart, noting Portuguese discoveries fifteen years after the rounding of Cape Bojador

1457 Fra Mauro map using Marco Polo as source

1490, 1499 manuscript sea chart by Henricus Martellus Germanicus shows Portuguese discoveries of 1434-1487

1494 Columbus reports his discoveries of 1492

1502, 1506 Cosa, Canerio, Cantino maps show 1434-1487 Portuguese discoveries; Cosa shows Columbus' discoveries and Cabot's of 1497 (also Hojeda expedition discoveries of 1499); Cantino shows Gaspar Corte-Real's 1501 discoveries

1529 or 1531 Magellan's discoveries of 1521 first appear on map

1535 Jacques Cartier's discoveries of 1535-1535 appear on map by Jean Rotz

1545 Antonio Pereira's map is one of first to record Orellana's 1452 trip on the Amazon

1564 Paolo Forlani's map reports Cartier's travels to Montreal

1582 Michael Lok's map of North America is one of the few that represents Frobisher's 1576 Baffin island exploration

1590 Columbus' discoveries begin appearing on all maps

1630 Hondius shows 1605 discovery of Australia

1647 map of north Asia uses information gathered 1600-1625

1742 Dezhnev's ca. 1650 expedition finally mapped

1752 Buache map is one of the first to incorporate some Russian discoveries made in the first part of the eighteenth century

1784 chart shows results of Cook's voyages (made ca. 1778)

1792 maps show Malaspina discoveries of 1789

1794 Arrowsmith map reflects 1788-1790 information

1799 Samuel hearn'es work inArctic ca. 1771 depicted by Arrowsmith

1850-1860 Information on explorations in Canadian Arctic incorporated on maps almost immediately