The Keynote Address: Maps as the Heritage of Mankind · The Keynote Address Maps as the Heritage of A1ankind* REVEREND FRANCIS J. HEYDEN, s.J. Astronomer, Georgetown Univ., Washington,

The Keynote Address

Maps as the Heritage of A1ankind*

REVEREND FRANCIS J. HEYDEN, s.J.Astronomer, Georgetown Univ., Washington, D. C.

I T IS unusual for an astronomer to give akeynote address to people who are earth­

bound in their avocation of mapping theearth. Of course, you could not have donevery much without stars, without the rota­tion of the earth or without the timekeeperswho give us the longitudes we need for anydistance to be measured on the surface of theearth.

Having been in charge of a time servicesimilar to that at the Naval Observatory inthe Philippines for three years, I presume Iam qualified for at least one dimension, andthat is longitude.

I am going to talk to you, however, aboutsomething entirely different from the meas­urement of longitude. Everybody has ahobby on the side, and one that has intriguedme for several years has been old maps andnew maps.

I like to look at them; I like to see howmuch work has gone into the delineation of acontour or of an elevation on a map. I havewondered who does all this work? \iVho wan­ders afield? \Vho has measured the eleva­tions; who measured the coast lines, the lati­tudes and the longi tudes?

Because every time there is a detail that isput down accurately on an ancient map, theremust have been somebody there who set footon the spot. Who has not looked at a very oldmap and wondered how much real labor andstudy went into it, not only on the part of theman who brought in the original data but theman who finally compiled it from all sorts ofdata and made it what it is.

Some very old maps appear very crude.They are no better than some of the directionsyou receive from a friend who invites you tohis cou ntry home and d raws it on the back of

an old envelope. As long as he indicates theright number of turns in the road and showsyou the number of stt'eams you are to cross,you can probably find the place I\'ithout toomuch difficulty.

In the same way, some of the most primi­tive maps have shown the the right number ofturns in a river; they have shown the por­tages at waterfalls and even have used camp­sites bet\\'een one day's travel, \I'hich was thecustom among the Indians of this country,rather than longitudes. Each campsite,whether you were climbing a mountain for aday or walking rapidly across a plain, wouldbe spaced equidistant apart.

Thus, the sources of scale in many very oldmaps which have been found are quite arbi­trary. But we have some maps which do nothave such an arbitrary scale, but actually hada mental picture of the entire area which hecould reproduce from memory.

An example of this is shown in the book byRaisz entitled "General Cartography." Apart of northern Canada covering an area ofseveral hundred square miles was drawn byan illiterate Eskimo. "'hen you compare itwi th a very carefull y prepared map, you areamazed at the accuracy with which this indi­vidual remembered minute details and scale.It is upon this type of person that I believemany of the very ancient maps we have de­pended for their amazi ng accuracy.

Most intriguing of all, of course, is the workof the compiler whom \I'e find here and therein the history of mapping. I shall talk about acouple of these people.

Compilers are the men who have gatheredthe information that has come helter skelterfrom d i fferen t travelers and voyagers. Thecompilers are able by the best means at their

* ASP-ACSM General Assembly, Main Ballroom, V,;edneselay, March 27, 1963 at 1:00 P.M.EDITOR'S NOTE: Father Heyden has been Director of the observatory at Georgetown University

since 1948. This well-known scientist was Chief Astronomer of the Manila Observatory from 1931-1934,and a mem bel' of the eclipse expeditions to Brazil in 1947 and to China in 1948. He has designed equipmen t,trained personnel and selected the observation sites for a numberof U. S. Air Force-sponsored eclipse ex­peditions to may parts of the worlel, including, most recently, Sudan and Iran. Father Heyden ~aswritten numerous articles on scientific subjects for a number of technical journals and is an authontyon the photo-electric method of observing solar eclipses. He is a consultant for the National Aeronauticsand Space Administration on applications of space relationships. Father Heyden was recently named bythe Washington Academy of Sciences as "Science Teacher of the Vear."

573

574 PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING

command to coordinate all of this heterogene­ous information into a unified whole. That, ofcourse, has been the principal task of all ofyou with the adyantages of modern tech­niques.

Perhaps the earliest known map of this sortwas that done by the Alexandrian scientistand astronomer, Eratosthenes, who is cred­ited with having compiled a map of the thenknown world on which he shows the BritishIsles, a good part of Siberia, India, Ceylon,the whole Mediterranean area, the IberianPeninsula and North Africa.

The unusual feature of this map by Eratos­thenes is the coordinate system similar to themercator projection which was introducedcenturies later.

Eratosthenes, of course, did know some­thing about coordinate systems. He was anoutstanding astronomer. He also had an ad­vantage in gathering the data for his map inthe library at Alexandria, of which he hadcharge. It was a relatively new library at thattime because it had been founded by Alexan­der the Great. With all of this material at hiscommand, he produced his map of the world,which was lost along with the original data inthe destruction of the library at the time ofthe rise of the Moslem empire. This same em­pire which did so much devastation in the be­ginning, was to produce a number of eminentscientists and astronomers a few centurieslater.

Only a description of Eratosthenes' map ofthe world survived. The map itself was de­stroyed, but it has been reproduced only fromthe descri ption.

Eratosthenes probably holds the title ofhaving made the first map of the world.

Ptolemy, who came three centuries afterEratosthenes, was the next great compiler ofancien t maps; and from then on, the art ofmapping became routine with explorers sav­ing their little drawings prepared mostly forcoastwise navigation. Not much effort was di­rected toward a map of the entire knownworld, until fairly recent times. It does appearthat there were maps which could be trusted,\"i th some degree of accuracy.

I have studied a few such maps with afriend of mine whom I have known for manyyears. He is about 80 years old now and hasbeen having a wonderful time collecting an­cient maps. His name is Arlington H. Mal­lery. Whenever he drops in for a visit, we talkabout the many things he hopes he can findsome day from such maps.

I do not know how much interpretation canbe gotten directly from them. All I ask while

looking at them is, where did all the evidencefor drawing these maps come from?

One map, a very ancient one, shows a partof Alaska. Whoever added the annotations inthe course of time has made me wonder aboutthe exploration entailed in it.

Mr. Mallery tells me that he heard about itthrough a Norwegian sea captain. On it youwill find that there are two words which referto a "muddy glacier" and "lava beds." Thereare scarcely any traces of these features now,but evidence of them has been found in thepreparation of the Geological Survey. Oneestimate of the age of the "muddy glacier" isabou t 1,500 years.

Another ancient map of the North Atlanticshowing Greenland and Labrador was used byFather Erlend Thordsen and published laterby Zeno. Certainly, this particular mapexisted before some of the most modern sur­veys and explorations of the country. It indi­cates that there have been voyagers therewith competent surveyors among them.Whether or not we shall ever be able to fullyexplore all of the information that these peo­ple brought back with them and have pre­served is a question that we should try toanswer in the future.

I have often 1V0ndered about the way cer­tain islands and other land masses have beenput together on these ancient maps. I believethat the compilers did not pay much atten­tion to the transoceanic distances in thosedays. When at sea, they simply sailed amisailed until they saw evidence of land. Mostof the ancien t maps seem to have been pre­pared for piloting rather than for navigation.

There is another ancient map (Figure 1)which indicates a projection viewed from thenorth and it shows the northern coast ofAlaska with the Aleutian Islands going off tothe righ t.

Another (Figure 11), presumably preparedby Zeno, shows Greenland. Most of the detailis now under ice. The accuracy of these buriedfeatures has intrigued Mr. Mallery and my­self. Paul Emile Victor has found evidence ofthese land areas which make Greenland ap­pear to be divided into two larger land masseswith a seaway between them.

The names of places have been put on thismap, not necessarily by the same people whodrew the map. None of these maps were pre­pared by one surveyor, probably not even byone group of surveyors at one time. Theymust represent a compilation of informationthat has been brought back over many gen­erations of explorers.

How much of this is based on tradition and

KEYNOTE ADDRESS: MAPS AS THE HERITAGE OF MANKIND 575

FIG. I North Coast of Alaska with identifications by A. H. Mallery.

memory; how much on actual record andscientific measurement cannot be fully ap­preciated. However, much of the coastlineshas been drawn by people who made actualmeasurements with whatever instrument theyhad at the time. This seems definite from mostof these ancient maps.

According to some seismic explorations,there are separate land masses under the ice-

cap of Greenland. Even though other expla­nations are equally plausible, such as the sink­ing of land masses under the weight of the ice,I would still be inclined to wonder why thevery old maps and modern seismic soundingsagree so closely. There is a modern GeologicalSurvey map of Alaska which indicates thetraces of the lava beds and the glacier thatwere marked on the old map. The new map is

*'U/t~H.;f mark. the probable location of a"...e.o.~est~.:.:::::-:-:-::::;:.~ sub.glaciol strait recently disclosed by the: ....... , • seismic soundings of the Expeditions PalairesFrancaisea In 1949·50·51·53.· Some of the numbered islandsin the Sltetries ar. no longer covered by the glacier. Theislohds in Fiord, Ollum Lengri were described by IverBQrd&l~son about 1355 and together with the Sketries form a /

subglac;a' a.chipelago pa.tly / I d' rJ~.•evealed by the .. ism;c .5 an /11 fne E. '5: •.soundings. '.

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FIG, II Greenland showing sub-glacial strait found by Paul Victor.

Copyright 1956 byArlington H. Mallery

Published byOverlook Co.,

Box 603 7,Wash. 5, O. C.

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KEYNOTE ADDRESS: MAPS AS THE HERIT.\GE OF MANKIND 577

a marvelous piece of work resulting from theefforts to use radioactive dating for the vari­ous rocks and other specimens that are foundin that area.

This map contains valuable informationthat we hope will never meet the fate of themap of Eratosthenes.

Another very interesting map (Figure III)that has caused a lot of discussion was pub­lished by the Turkish navigator, Piri Reis, inthe year 1513. He originally compiled a mapof the whole known world, but only portionsof his work are known today. The map of theeast coast of South America sho\\'ing a mouthfor the Amazon River. vVhen the t\\·o rivermouths are superimposed, the entire eastcoastline matches the best available chartfrom the U. S. Hydrographic Office with sur­prising accuracy. This map extends all theway into North America and around throughAlaska. The islands of the \Vest Indies aremixed up with Iceland and Greenland not faraway. The islands apparently are not placedaccording to latitude and longitude. But foranybody sailing in on a particular compassheading and seeing "land fall" of an island,the particular area of the map would serve fortheir piloting and navigation.

This map by Pit-i Reis is the first one thatM r. II allery sho\\-ed to me. He made all of thecomparisons between old and new with theassistance of a friend in the HydrographicOffice. After matching the various parts of thecoasts with the best known data of Hydra­graphic Office charts, they obtained the resultshown in Figure ITI.

It is evident that whoever surveyed thecoastline for this map had been there. Thiswas not done by a casual voyager makingrough sketches wi th pencil and paper as hetravelled.

Piri Reis' story was that he used informa­tion from the libraries of Alexandria and somefrom a Spanish navigator who had been cap­tured by Turkish pirates and who had beenon a voyage with Christopher Columbus.

How valid is this map?I have read one or two comments in books

that imply it is a forgery, but this much istrue: There would not be much purpose inmaking a forgery about two hundred yearsago. There is enough evideilce that the copiesof the Piri Reis map in existence are at leastthat old. Furthermore, there is some informa­tion in the part along the northern coast ofAntarctica which seems to have been knownbefore the present ice shelf got as big and asthick as it is.

Mr. Mallery and I featured the Antarctic

section of this map with Mr. Walter of theHydrographic Office and Father Daniel Line­han of Weston College Seismic Station inMassachusetts on the Georgetown UniversityForum in 1956 under the title "New and OldDiscoveries in An tarctica."

In the transcript of that broadcast I put apicture of this map. We used to send out atranscript to anybody who wanted it for tencents. vVhen we had to send out a couplethousand transcripts of this broadcast, I got alittle bit worried because it was costing moremoney to produce and mail them than the tencent fee provided. I stopped taking orderswhen the last printing had run out.

Now I have to send ten cents back to peo­ple all over the world, even Russia and Japanbecause they have read about this half-hourbroadcast and are interested in the Piri Reismap. vVithout a doubt, it has become a very,very, famous map and there are many peopleinterested in the unknown surveyors whoprovided the original data.

I have never figured out what all the shipsmean on ancien t maps. Some people thinkthat there is a cipher in them, but I am notcompetent to know whether they do morethan indicate the type of ship that was travel­ling at that particular time in that area orwhether you would need a big ship in one areaand a small ship in another.

There are some stories about the explorerswho obtained the data for maps in the 16thand 17th cen turies. There was a J esui t laybrother by the name of Goez who travelledwith a caravan through Tibet and across intoChina. V.'e are told that he made many astra­position observations with crude instrumentsin an effort to try to get a map of that area.With him were a group of natives to whom hehad loaned money from funds that had beenentrusted to him to bring into China. He fellsick and died before he arrived at his destina­tion and his records of his observations weredestroyed by his fellow travellers, to get rid ofrecords of the loans he had made to them.

Brother Goez would have made a contribu­tion to the geodesy of that area which wouldhave been most valuable to the Chinese andperhaps to the map makers of today.

You may not be familiar with the work ofthe early Jesuits who went to China withFather Matthew Ricci. They found theChinese very interested in making maps andfound many ancient ones showing the greatwall and other details remarkably well. TheJesuits became the astronomers to the em­peror and tried to determine the differ­ence in longitude between Paris and Peking.

· - --_.'-"'- f Atlantic Ocean.- . ap 0I II Piri Rels mFIG.

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KEYNOTE ADDRESS: MAPS AS THE HERITAGE OF MANKIND 579

This work done by Father Verbiest andothers until close to the middle of the 17thcentury was most valuable at the time, andyou can still find it published because of thecare with which the observations were made.

They used the eclipses of the satellites ofJupiter for this work. In fact, this procedurehas been suggested by Galileo. It is the firstlong-range longitude determination that Iknow of in the scientific mapping of the world.

There is a map showing China and thenorth Pacific which is purported to have beenbrought back from China by Marco Polo. Itwas in his family for many generations. TheRossi family in California who presented it tothe Library of Congress are descendan ts ofMarco Polo. Annotations on the map havecaused controversy over its validity. With­out a doubt, it is a very old map and despitethe scribblings by others it is probably original.

It would appear that the world was quitewell explored up until the time that suchmaps were compiled. The navigators whobrought back the information are to be con­gratulated.

Now this is another one of my maps. Ithink I will skip this one and go on to the nextone that I have.

There is a map of the Philippine Islands,where I spent three years as an astronomer,published by the Coast and Geodetic Surveyunder Dr. Bach in 1932. It represented a com­plete survey by several hundred people. Atone time there were five or six survey shipsworking in that particular area.

\Vhen it appeared, the author of the newCoast and Geodetic Survey map approachedthe Director of Manila Observatory. Hewanted to compare it with an 18th centurymap that had been in use from about the be­ginning of that century up until the middle ofthe 19th century. The old Philippine map hadbeen prepared by Father Pedro MurilloVelarde, a Spanish Jesuit. He had used aportolano type projection (Figure IV), * and

* I t is regretted that the folded maps were suchthat satisfactory reproduction was not possib!e.­EDITOIl.

had compiled it from all of the available in­formation that had accumulated during thecentury and a half following the settlemcnt ofthe islands by the Spaniards.

He began this work as early as 1733 in orderto prepare this map, and in his report hel\Tites that he put in all of the villages, points,inlets, ports, shoals, reefs, courses, sailing di­rections, rivers, forts and distances that wereknown. The final result was very close toscale.

In the margins around his map he gives adescription of events most memorable for thehistory of the place. The map, therefore,shows completeness in the names of the townsand the in terior topography hardly equalledin any other map of its kind. Even the sailingcourses for ships that would be leavingManila Bay for the San Bernadino Strait areindicated.

There are pictures on the other side of themap which depict the life of the people and onthe medallion with the map is a history of theislands as you would have found them at thetime of Lopez DeLegaspi, the conquistadorwho built the City of Manila. The cartog­rapher points out that the islands are rich ingold, wax, sugar, honey, tobacco, oranges, avariety of cotton, cocoa, shells, rice, sal t andcorn. Every possible fruit and export havebeen listed here.

For these reasons Velarde's map of thePhilippines has been considered one of themost exact and complete maps of its kind.

\;\Then it was superceded by a more accurateprojection, it II'as reprinted by the CoastalGeodetic Survey to preserve it as a documentfor future reference.

I t is su fficien t that you as mappers a!ll'aystry to treat a map as a source of tradition, torecord not only just the position of things butwhat they are at thc time of the survey. Re­visions should be put on new maps without de­stroying the old, so that as continents lift, asmountains are leveled, as volcanoes grow,there II·ill a!ll'ays be a heritage for the peoplethat they may know what \I'e had on thisearth, what lye ~all' and what II'e measured.