scoveries and
inventions, relating to astronomy, which were made prior to the eighteenth
century, so far as they are connected with the advancement of the art of
navigation and the science of geography.

The discoveries of Columbus and Gama necessarily overturned the systems of
Ptolemy, Strabo, and the other geographers of antiquity. The opinion that
the earth was a globe, which had been conjectured or inferred prior to the
voyage of Magellan, was placed beyond a doubt by that voyage. The heavenly
bodies were subjected to the calculations of man by the labours of
Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, and Galileo. Under these circumstances it was
necessary, and it was easy, to make great improvements in the construction
of maps, in laying down the real form of the earth, and the relative
situations of the countries of which it is formed, together with their
latitudes and longitudes. The first maps which displayed the new world were
those of the brothers Appian, and of Ribeiro: soon afterwards a more
complete and accurate one was published by Gemma Frisius. Among the
geographers of the sixteenth century, who are most distinguished for their
science, may be reckoned Sebastian Munster; for though, as we have already
mentioned, he joins Greenland to the north of Lapland in his map, yet his
research, labour, and accuracy were such, that he is compared by his
contemporaries to Strabo. Ortelius directed his studies and his learning to
the elucidation of ancient geography; and according to Malte Bran, no
incompetent judge, he may yet be consulted on this subject with advantage.

But modern geography may most probably be dated from the time of Mercator:
he published an edition of Ptolemy, in which he pointed out the
imperfection of the system of the ancients. The great object at this time,
was to contrive such a chart in plano, with short lines, that all places
might be truly laid down according to their respective longitudes and
latitudes. A method of this kind had been obscurely pointed at by Ptolemy;
but the first map on this plan was made by Mercator, about the year 1550.
The principles, however, on which it was constructed, were not demonstrated
till the year 1559, when Wright, an Englishman, pointed them out, as well
as a ready and easy way of making such a map. This was a great help to
navigators; since by enlarging, the meridian line, as Wright suggested and
explained, so that all the degrees of longitude might be proportional to
thos