College and Research Libraries


Review Articles 
_J 

Early Maps of the Pacific 

The Early Cartography of the Pacific. By 
Lawrence C. Wroth. (In Papers of the 
Bibliographical Society of America. Vol. 

' 38, no. 2, 1944.) 

If the student of history is able to grasp 
the vital relationship between cartography and 
the present state of world politics , economics, 
and military strategy, he will read this paper 
carefully, including all footnotes, with a full 
appreciation of its significance and will derive 
from it a healthy respect for cartography as 
a world force. Ancient and out-of-date maps 
will assume a new importance in his concep­
tion of history, and the present world conflict, 
with its inevitable geographic upheavals, will 
be seen as merely another chapter in Mr. 
Wroth's story, which is the very ancient, uni­
versal struggle for world conquest, the history 
of which can best be understood by means of 
maps and charts. 

The author of this study has successfully 
accomplished his purpose, which was "to re­
late in a concise and ordered manner the 
history of · the significant voyages, the dreams, 
the frustrations, the chimerical imaginings 
through which the Pacific and Indian Ocean 
areas became known to the Western World." 
The timeliness of the work will be obvious to 
the reader if he is aware of our appalling 
ignorance of the Pacific area prior to the 
outbreak of hostilities with Japan. For while 
our national mapping agencies have brought 
up to date the spotty maps and charts made 
during the past hundred years, this mono­
graph covers the almost forgotten period from 
the earliest records up to the year 18oo. 

"Today," says Mr. Wroth, "a new world 
has thrust itself into the consciousness of 
Americans and Europeans," a world which 
will continue to exert an ever-increasing force 
on our private interests and public policies, 
both domestic and foreign, for many years to 
come. It is, therefore, high time we examined 
this unfamiliar world historically as well as 
cartographically. 

Mr. Wroth traces the mapping of the 

Pacific from the days when the pilots' phrase, 
''position doubtful ," applied to most of the 
places on the earth, when both the nature 
and extent of the land and water between 
the western coast of Europe and the eastern 
shores of Asia were subjects of philosophical 
discussion and geographic speculation devoid 
of factual data. As the story unfolds we 
learn how rumor was followed by exploration, 
which in turn led to maps and charts, crude 
and distorted at · first, subjects of bitter con­
troversies and disastrous voyages, until grad­
ually the facts were sifted to form the basis 
of accurate documents on which navigators 
and potentates could depend. 

The cartography of the Pacific developed 
in three parallel columns. In the first was 
the scientific map, typified by the mathematical 
products of Claudius Ptolemy, Alexandrian 
geographer who flourished about 150 A.D. In 
the second were the ecclesiastical maps con­
ceived in ancient Greece and propagated for 
three thousand years for the edification of the 
uncritical who lived by faith alone. The third 
column stemmed from the earliest portolan 
charts, strictly utilitarian products made by 
men who sailed the seas, and hence most fre­
quently accurate, within their limited scope. 
Errors on scientific and ecclesiastical maps 
and charts might bring academic censure to 
their compilers, but errors on portolan charts 
cost lives and precious cargoes. 

The prototypes of the scientific map and 
the sea chart of today survived and developed, 
Mr. Wroth points out, "because the scientific 
production learned to go to the utilitarian for 
its subject matter, while the utilitarian bor­
rowed from the scientific its learned system 
of construction." But the ecclesiastical map, 
while retarding the development of the other 
two, remained barren, contributing little but 
confusion to the evolving chart of the world 
until finally it died, without issue, a natural 
death. This not unusual admixture of science, 
fantasy, and cold practical fact produced some 
weird cartographic results, and the author 

282 . COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



brings out the retrogression as wel( as pro­
gression of cartographic publications through­
out the years. "The force of bad · example," 
he points out, "is a characteristic in the lives 
of maps as of men." 

Mr. Wroth follows his subject closely and, 
while he is telling a story, the reader is not 
allowed to forget that the author is also 
talking maps and charts. He uses references 
to maps in his footnotes, instead of the usual 
quotations from historical manuscripts, to 
document his statements. In fact, twenty­
eight of the forty-one "works most frequently 
cited in notes" appended to the text, are 
studies on cartography, and .several others are 
borderline works leaning strongly toward the 
subject of maps.. Also appended is a list of 
I<.?4 of the principal maps mentioned, arranged 
in chronological order, with notes in each 
case as to the location of the particular copy 
consulted. · 

Special mention should be made of the 
twenty-two folding plates bound in with the 
text which are reproductions, in most cases 
reduced in size , of some of the most unusual 

maps and charts referred to. Besides adding 
to the general usefulness of the text as a 
reference work, they present to the reader, in 
some cases for the first time, rare treasures 
which many persons may never be privileged 
to see in the original. Some of these docu­
ments have long since been lost or destroyed, 
but their influence on cartographic history 
is incontestable. The reproductions are 
something of an achievement in themselves, 
and the collotype process has produced a 
finished ,product .which is both attractive and 
remarkably legible. 

This publication, a few copies of which are 
available in book form, separately paginated 
and with an index, presents a subject and a 
body of literature which is all too unfamiliar 
to geographers and historians of the present 
day. And yet it is no more possible to under­
stand the - history of the ancient Pacific with­
out recourse to maps and charts than it is 
to study intelligently the present war in that 
area without them.-Lloyd A. Brown, li­
brarian, Peabody Institute of the City of 
Baltimore. 

Anniversaries and Holidays 

Anniversaries and Holidays,· A Calendar of 
Days and How to Obs erve Them. Mary 
Emogene Hazeltine. Second edition, com­
pletely revised with the editorial assistance 
of Judith K. Sollenberger. American Li­
brary Association, 1944. 3 16p. 

The announcement that an excellent and 
time-tested reference tool has been revised 
is always good news to the reference librarian. 
Acquaintance with the first edition of Miss 
Hazeltine's "calendar-bibliography" assured 
us of excellence in the revision. Our expecta­
tions have been more than fulfilled; the new 
volume deserves an enthusiastic reception. 

The revised edition adds many new names 
and anniversaries, completely revises the bib­
liographies, and arranges its material more 
compactly. Three of the parts have been 
telescoped into one, leaving five divisions in 
the book instead of seven. Calendar dates and 
code numbers for entries in the bibliography 
s~ctions are in heavier type and placed more 
conspicuously in the page heading, making the 
volume easier to use. 

The ''Calendar" reflects trends in recent 

history and politics by the addition of such 
new anniversaries as Pan American Day, 
Atlantic Charter Day, Pearl Harbor Day, and 
independence days for Latin American coun­
tries, and by the appropriate omission of, for 
example, Germany's Constitution Day of 
1919. Many of the special weeks and days 
publicized and celebrated in America have 
been included: Book Week, Garden Week, 
Buddy Poppy Week, Race Relations Sunday, 
and many others. Inauguration Day has 
been changed to January 20, with a nete re­
garding changes of date in its history. 

The new "Calendar" contains 1387 personal 
names, approximately five hundred more than 
in the first edition. The names are chosen 
to represent all fields of endeavor and the 
new ones are chiefly those of persons who 
have become prominent in recent years, such 
as Stephen Vincent Benet, George Washing­
ton Carver, . Winston Churchill, George 
Gershwin, Mahatma Gandhi, Thomas Masa­
ryk, the Mayos, and Toscanini. Some less 
important names in the old edition have been 
omitted. A number of entry dates have been 

JUNE, 1945 283