all events, in 1507, when on April 25th Waldseemüller published his Cosmographic Introductio, speaking of these discoveries, he proposed to give to the newly found land the name of America because Vespucci had discovered it. In this Introduction he speaks of the Cosmographia, which the text is written to explain, as being entirely finished on April 25th.

The Introduction was well known to modern scholars since Alexander von Humboldt's time; but of the Cosmography, notwithstanding the most thorough research, not a trace appeared. The nearest approach to it were two little maps by the geographer and poet Henricus Glareanus (1527), discovered one by von Wieser in Munich and the other by Elter in Bonn. The latter is dated 1510, and a marginal note of Glareanus informs us that in drawing the map he had followed the geographer of S. Deodatus (St. Dié), i.e. Waldseemüller. It should be remarked that in the Cosmographic Introductio Waldseemüller complains of the injustice done to him as an author by the St. Dié geographers; this complaint seems to be explained by the fact that the map discovered by Father Fischer does not bear on it the name of Waldseemüller. The failure of all efforts to find the Cosmographia of 1507 finally led some of the foremost cartographers to doubt that such a map had ever existed. Among these doubters was the great Nordenskiöld, who in his Facsimile Atlas repeatedly declared that the Ptolemy of 1513 is the first book on which the new Spanish discoveries were laid down. In the Periplus he reiterates this opinion, though von Wieser had meanwhile attempted to prove the contrary. Such was the condition of this problem when Father Fischer discovered the map which he holds is the Waldseemüller Map of 1507.

The learned Jesuit had gone to the castle of Wolfegg, belonging to Prince Waldburg, to hunt for early maps representing Greenland. The Waldburg family owned a valuable and unique collection of early engravings, especially of Dürer engravings. In a manuscript volume, bound in very substantial white leather with a wooden cover, bearing the date 1515, Fischer found Dürer's chart of the heavens bearing that date,

along with another stellar map and two large maps of the world. The book-plate proved that the manuscript volume had once belonged to the famous mathematician and cartographer, Johann Schoener. The two maps of the globe were wood-cuts; both consisted of twelve folios arranged in three rows of four folios each. The size of the folio is about 18 inches by 24 inches; the entire map, therefore, measures about 4 feet 6 inches by 8 feet. The map accordingly was intended for a wall-map. It is important to note this fact, for it explains on the one hand the great influence exerted by the map to spread and fix the new name America, and on the other hand accounts for the complete disappearance of the one thousand copies of the map that were printed. For even the copy contained in the Wolfegg volume is no part of the first edition, being, as Wieser contends, a proof thereof. The name of Waldseemüller, as already stated, does not appear on the map, the title of which reads: Universalis Cosmographia secundum Ptholomæi traditionem et Americi Vespucci aliorumque lustrationes.* The date of the map and the place where it was printed appear nowhere.

How then can it be claimed that the map is the Waldseemüller map of 1507? Prof. Wieser, in Petermann's Mittheilungen, vol. 47, p. 272, presents the following arguments:

1. The Wolfegg map agrees exactly with the two small maps designed by H. Glareanus (one in 1510) and declared by him to be reduced copies of the map of the geographer of St. Dié.

2. It carries out in every particular the statements regarding the Universalis Cosmographia in the Cosmographiœ Introductio.

3. The verbal agreement between many terms in the map and the corresponding passages in the Cosmographic Introductio. To explain this we quote from Fischer's article in Benziger's Magazine, Vol. VI., p. 270. The Cosmographia Introductio begins as follows: "It is my intention to write in

* Map of the World according to the tradition of Ptolemy and the discoveries of Amerigo Vespucci and others.

...

this book a description of the Cosmographia,* which I have engraved as a globe and as a plane (in solido et in plano); on a small scale as a globe, but on a large scale as a plane, where I have endeavored to show the most important countries of the earth with the symbols of their rulers, just as peasants are wont to mark their fields and set forth their boundaries." "He then enumerates some of the symbols which he has placed on the map, e.g. the papal keys, the crescent, the Roman imperial double eagle which rules over the kings of Europe. . . . Waldseemüller calls special attention to the fact that he has marked with small crosses the shallow places on the coast, where shipwrecks might be feared. All these signs are in fact found on this map, and in many places of America the little crosses are given as well as the insignia of the rulers. In conclusion Waldseemüller says that in designing his map he had not followed Ptolemy everywhere, but had followed the marine charts in some places. Then he repeats that the map, both globe and plane map, was already finished on April 25th, the date borne by the Introduction."

4. The fact that the World Map has the same size, form, and distribution of folios as the second map of the Wolfegg volume, that which is entitled Carta Marina navigatoria Portugaliensium navigationes atque tocius cogniti orbis, etc., and proclaims itself the work of Martin Waldseemüller, which was completed in the town of St. Deodatus (St. Dié) on the eve of Pentecost in the year 1516. On this Marine Chart Waldseemüller substitutes for the name America the legend Terra de Cuba Asie partis. Both the World Map of the Wolfegg codex and the Carta Marina are engraved on wood.

It never rains but it pours. After years of fruitless search Father Fischer discovers the Waldseemüller map of 1507, and lo! before a year elapses we learn of an older Waldseemüller map bearing the name America. The discoverer of this new map is Mr. Henry N. Stevens of London, the son of our countryman Henry Stevens of Vermont, who was a recognized authority

*The reader will bear in mind that this is the title of Waldseemüller's Map.

on American history and cartography. Some five or six years ago the younger Stevens discovered in an imperfect copy of the Strassburg Ptolemy of 1513 a map wholly differing from the supplementary map which usually goes with this edition of Ptolemy. The map matched the other maps of the Ptolemy, but on it appeared the name America. Our readers will recall that the Strassburg Ptolemy of 1513 was the work of the Lorraine geographers, that Mathias Ringmann furnished the Latin text and that Martin Waldseemüller designed the maps. Stevens studied the singular find for a long time. In 1900 he came to the conclusion that the map was (1) by Waldseemüller; (2) that it was older than the first edition of the Cosmographic Introductio; (3) that it was the oldest printed map having a representation of the newly discovered continent and bearing the name America. Having arrived at these results, Stevens offered the find to a prominent American library with a short story of the discovery. The authorities of the library were struck with the importance of the find and requested Mr. Stevens to submit the case to an expert selected by the library authorities. Stevens sent a historical report covering 200 pages folio, which satisfied the American expert. The library, whose name is not mentioned, bought the map in May, 1901. Stevens' report was returned to him with some critical notes and a request to revise it. Mr. Stevens had just finished his revision when Father Fischer announced his discovery.

In the Geographical Journal for February, 1902,* Mr. Basil H. Soulsby, assistant in the Map Room of the British Museum and honorary secretary of the Hakluyt Society, published a paper based on the report sent by Stevens to the American library. Soulsby, who says that the discovery of the Waldseemüller maps "has long been considered as the highest possible prize to be obtained amongst students in the field of ancient cartography,"† counsels prudence and thinks that Stevens has

* The Geographical Journal, Vol. XIX., pp. 201-210.

† Ibid., Vol. XIX., p. 202 and p. 205 ff.

made out a strong case for his map. He expresses the opinion that the verdict of the American expert and the purchase of the map by the American library speak loudly in favor of Stevens' views. Stevens himself, without seeing the Wolfegg map, states that his own map and the Wolfegg map are two wholly different documents, and that probably both are by Waldseemüller. This conclusion is justified by the difference in the dimensions of the two maps. He is inclined to regard his own map as the older of the two, but withholds a final decision until he has seen Fischer's map.

Let us now see what Stevens had to say for his map before the discovery of the Wolfegg map was announced. The map found by himself, he holds, is the prototype of the map of the world found in the Strassburg Ptolemy of 1513, not vice versa. This being so, his map must be the oldest map containing the name America. The Strassburg map, also by Waldseemüller, has not the word America, it is true. But this fact is due to the discovery by the cartographer that Vespucci was not entitled to the honor of having the new continent named for him. The explanation is the same as that given by von Wieser to account for the absence of the word America on the Carta Marina of 1516. A detailed comparison of his map with the Cosmographia Introductio as regards the paper, the typography, the engraving, the geographical figures, and the nomenclature convinced Mr. Stevens that his map is older than the Introduction; in fact he assigns the map to 1506 or 1507. Neither he nor the American expert finds any particulars that point to the conclusion that the Introduction is older than his map.

Furthermore, Mr. Stevens contends that as early as 1505 the St. Dié geographers were preparing a new edition of Ptolemy. Early in 1507, he claims, the new Ptolemy was ready for the press, as well as some new maps; but the map of the New World, he thinks, was prepared before the special maps were thought of. Stevens is convinced that before the globe and map of which the Cosmographic Introductio speaks were designed, two other maps (globes) of the New World were prepared