Note 63 — INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST EDITION.

How this Matvyéeva Zemlya, together with Matyushin Shar, should have been lost from our maps, may be easily explained, though not altogether in the way attempted by Dr. Hamel.63 The accompanying fac-simile of a map drawn by Isaac Massa, and published in 1612 by Hessel Gerard, in a small volume64 now very rare, contains (as will be seen) a delineation of Novaya Zemlya, there shown as an island of not large extent, and the surrounding regions. The strongly marked entire line along the western side of Novaya Zemlya, is that of the coast as furnished to Massa by his Russian authorities: the faint dotted line is that of the coast as corrected by himself or Gerard from Dutch sources of information. The proper names, as written in strong and faint characters respectively, indicate, in like manner, the several sources from which such names were derived. In this map a broad channel is laid down between the island of Novaya Zemlya and a terra innominata to the north of it, to which channel is given the name of “Matsei of tsar”, which was evidently intended for “Matſeiof tsar”, which again must be taken to have been written instead of “Matfeiof tsar”, through a mere clerical error.65 The faint dotted line along the west coast of Novaya Zemlya shows that it had been carefully and (considering the time when it was drawn) very accurately corrected; for we there see plainly laid down the Mezhdusharsky Ostrov and the two inlets—Kostin Shar and Podryesov Shar—between which that island lies, and from which it derives its appellation.66