year 1459, where Ptolemy is easily discernible and where the name of Tibet appears. Even when new journeys of exploration proved the Alexandrian geographer to be in the wrong, one felt reluctant to reject him. A giant stride in the right direction is marked by Jacopo Gastaldi's epoch-making map of India from the year 1561. It is only in the hydrography of the Ganges and the Indus that Ptolemy can be traced, but for the rest he has completely disappeared. Gastaldi is not satisfied with the classical names of the Himalayas, he speaks instead of Monte Dalangver, M. Naugracot and M. Ussonte. Of Tibet he has nothing to tell, but of the regions surrounding it he gives so ingenious a representation, that one almost has a foreboding that the unknown land will soon appear of its own accord.
The world map of Gerard Mercator from the year 1569 is the most important one from the 16th century, constituting the foundation of cartography for many years to come. He finds it difficult to renounce his faith in Ptolemy, and does all that is possible to make the new discoveries harmonize with the time-honoured map of the old Alexandrian. Thus he is induced to shape the preposterous representation of the course of the Ganges, which he draws out as far as to the sea, East of the peninsula of Farther India. Mercator believes the Taprobana insula of Ptolemy to be Sumatra and consequently makes out the Hsi-chiang to be the lower course of the Ganges. A similar mistake was committed 26o years later by Klaproth, when he led the Tsangpo to the Irrawaddi and not to the Brahmaputra.
Ortelius and Hondius, together with other geographers, followed in this respect the unfortunate lead of Mercator. The orography of Ortelius is an inheritance from Gastaldi, but his hydrography is derived from Mercator. Therefore the Indus is, also according to Ortelius, of the Ptolemeyan type. The representation of our region by Ortelius, as compared to the description made by Gastaldi, marks a great stride backwards. Thus he has hit upon the monstrous idea of removing Taebet to the shores of the Mekong.
In the map of Ludouicus Georgius of 1584, the Ganges of Mercator is at last abandoned. But it is first after the middle of the 17th century that real improvements can be traced, though only affecting the countries round the inaccessible Tibet. Even this name is still missing on some maps, which proves that the journeys of Odoric and Andrade had exercised no influence on them. Only Kircher remembers them on his fantastic, but very remarkable map. Grueber and Dorville could not be ignorant in the same manner as their predecessors.
In the year of 1611, Hondi us has nothing new to give, beyond what was already produced by Mercator and Ortelius. Like the latter, he has drawn the Indus
IV-131387. I.
IIIFカラー高解像度
