Note 466 — Chapter XI · (Addenda.) 1526-1614.

The copy of Mercator’s map preserved in the National library, in Paris, which is entitled “Nova et aucta orbis terrae descriptio at usum navigantium emendeté accommodata,” measures seventy-eight and a half inches by fifty inches. On this map is represented the earth in plano, the meridians being paralleled and the parallels of latitude straight lines, according to those principles of projection known as Mercator’s projection. Respecting the latter, he says, in an inscription on the chart: “On account of which considerations, we have increased gradually the length of the degrees of latitude toward each pole proportionate to the increase of the parallels beyond the length which they have on the globe, relatively to the equator:—“Quibus consideratis, gradus latitudinum versus utrumque polum paulatim auximus pro incremento parallelorum supra rationem quam habint ad acquinoctialem.” Abraham Ortelius, the eminent cartographer, speaks of this map of Mercator’s as “his never-enough-praised universal chart,—Sua nunquam satis laudata universalis tabula.”