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the first to draw a graduated map of the great Western
Ocean, but when we find that he rejected Ptolemy's
critique of the exaggerated extent given by Marinus of
Tyre to the route followed by the caravans in their visits
to Sera, and failed to identify Ptolemy's Serica with the
Cathaia of Marco Polo, as had been done before him by
Fra Mauro, we are not able to rank him as high as a
critical cartographer as he undoubtedly ranks as an
astronomer. He may have been the " initiator " of the
voyage which resulted in the discovery of America, but
cannot be credited with being the " hypothetical"
discoverer of this new world. That honour, if honour it
be, in the absence of scientific arguments is due to Crates
of Mallos, who died 145 years before Christ, whose
Perioeci and Antipodes are assigned vast continents in the
Western Hemisphere, or to Strabo (b. 66 b.c., died 24a.d.),
whose " other habitable world " occupies the site of our
North America.

Sir John Mandeville.1

Jean de Bourgogne, dit a la barbe, a learned physician of
Liege, declared on his death-bed (in 1475) that his real
name was Jean de Mandeville, but that having killed a
nobleman he had been obliged to flee England, his native
country, and live in concealment. This pretended
Englishman is the author of a book of travels which
W. D. Cooley 2 describes as " the most unblushing volume
of lies that was ever offered to the world," but which,
perhaps on that very ground, became one of the most
popular books of the age, for as many as sixteen editions
of it, in French, German, Italian and Latin, were printed
between 1480 and 1492. In the original French the
author is called Mandeville, in German translations
Johannes or Hans von Montevilla, in the Latin and
Italian Mandavilla. Behaim calls him Johann de
Mandavilla, as in Italian, although six editions of his work
printed in German, at Strassburg and Augsburg, were at
his command. I conclude from this that he is indebted
to an Italian map and not to a perusal of his ' Travels' for
the two references on the globe. The first of these (near
Candyn) refers to the invisibility of the Lodestar in the
Southern Hemisphere and the Antipodes, and is one of
the four original statements of the learned doctor, and
the second describes the dog-headed people of Nekuran
(c. 18), which he has borrowed from Odoric of Portenone
and enlarged upon.

Portolano Charts.3

Portolano charts were widely distributed in Behaim's
time, and the fact that the Baltic Sea (Ptolemy's Mare

1 For an excellent paper on Mandeville and the sources of his
'Travels,' by Dr. A. Bovenschen (b. 1864 at Ostrowo), see 'Zeitsch. f.
Erdkunde,' XXIII., 1888, pp. 177-306.

1 'The History of Maritime and Inland Discovery,'I., p. 329 (London,
1830).

3 A description suggested by F. von Wieser, as describing " without
prejudice" the charts illustrating the Italian 1 Portolani' or sailing
directories, previously known as Compass or Loxodromic charts.

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