NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Translation of latin?
From: George Huxtable
Date: 2010 Jun 4, 21:13 +0100
From: George Huxtable
Date: 2010 Jun 4, 21:13 +0100
Thanks to Wolfgang for clearing up the origin of this Polar map, brought to our attention by John Huth.. What I had seen, on the web, was a coloured copy, in poor resolution dated 1623, which (it turns out) had been abstracted from the lower-left corner of Mercator's famous printed 1569 World map "for the use of vavigators". And I've found a reproduction of a similar polar map, dated 1595, in one of my books of early maps, that was also abstracted from the 1569 map. Clearly, these all derive from that 1569 work of Mercator, and there is an unquestionable link from that work. Unfortunately, none of the books on my shelves about old maps reproduces that important 1569 map for navigators, and all I've been able to find on the internet are versions in very poor resolution. If anyone can offer a pointer to a decent image, blow-up-able, of Mercator's 1569 map, I would be grateful. As Jonkers points out in his book, Mercator's multiple poles, in that 1569 map, were the result of an attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable, discordant observation of where the agonic line (the line of zero variation) lies, in the Atlantic. George. contact George Huxtable, at george@hux.me.uk or at +44 1865 820222 (from UK, 01865 820222) or at 1 Sandy Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5HX, UK.