Arabia, Etna in the centre of Sicily, the Alps, Apennines,
Carpathians, the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the Caspian, &c.--names
badly applied, for neither mountains nor seas recalled the configuration
of their namesakes on the globe. That large white spot, joined on the
south to vaster continents and terminated in a point, could hardly be
recognised as the inverted image of the Indian Peninsula, the Bay of
Bengal, and Cochin-China. So these names were not kept. Another
chartographer, knowing human nature better, proposed a fresh
nomenclature, which human vanity made haste to adopt.

This observer was Father Riccioli, a contemporary of Hevelius. He drew
up a rough map full of errors. But he gave to the lunar mountains the
names of great men of antiquity and _savants_ of his own epoch.

A third map of the moon was executed in the seventeenth century by
Dominique Cassini; superior to that of Riccioli in the execution, it is
inexact in the measurements. Several smaller copies were published, but
the plate long kept in the _Imprimerie Nationale_ was sold by weight as
old brass.

La Hire, a celebrated mathematician and designer, drew up a map of the
moon four and a half yards high, which was never engraved.

After him, a German astronomer, Tobie Marger, about the middle of the
eighteenth century, began the publication of a magnificent selenographic
map, according to lunar measures, which he rigorously verified; but his
death, which took place in 1762, prevented the termination of this
beautiful work.

It was in 1830 that Messrs. Boeer and Moedler composed their celebrated
_Mappa Selenographica_, according to an orthographical projection. This
map reproduces the exact lunar disc, such as it appears, only the
configurations of the mountains and plains are only correct in the
central part; everywhere else--in the northern or southern portions,
eastern or western--the configurations foreshortened cannot be compared
with those of the centre. This topographical map, one yard high and
divided into four parts, is a masterpiece of lunar chartography.

After these _savants_ may be cited the selenographic reliefs of the
German astronomer Julius Schmidt, the topographical works of Father
Secchi, the magnificent sheets of the English amateur, Waren de la Rue,
and lastly a map on orthographical projection of Messrs. Lecouturier and
Chapuis, a fine model set up in 1860, of very correct design and clear
outlines.

Such is the nomen