Edward Luther Stevenson

“ The course of Magellan’s voyage, so frequently laid down on the maps of the period, here finds record in the threadlike line which encircles the globe. As in the hemispheres of Franciscus, so here, America is laid down as a part of the Asiatic continent. The workmanship of the globe is equal to the best that one could find in the Italy, France or Germany of that day, while the few German words among the numerous Latin names, as “Baden,” “Braunschweig,” and “Wien,” give some support for the claim that it is of German origin. ”

“ For Gallus informed me that there was another ancient invention of a solid and elaborately formed globe which was made by Thales, the Milesian, to revolve. And afterward the same was, by Eudoxus of Cnidos, the disciple of Plato, adorned with the fixed stars of heaven, and with every ornament and embellishment, as described by Eudoxus, and was many years afterward celebrated by Aratus, not exactly in the scientific language of astronomy, but with the graces of poetry. ”

“ There is no intimation, however, in any early allusion to Eratosthenes that he was a globe maker, or that he knew anything about globe construction. We know that he thought of the earth as a sphere placed in the center of the universe, around which the celestial sphere revolves every twenty-four hours.23 Strabo, at a much later date, in referring to the geographical ideas of Eratosthenes, censured him for his unnecessarily elaborate proofs of the earth’s spherical character, apparently thinking the fact one too well known to require demonstration. ”

“ That terrestrial globes were constructed toward the close of the fifteenth century is of significance, not only as a response to a new desire for more nearly accurate representation of the earth’s surface than could be set forth on a plane map, but it is likewise significant by reason of the fact that such globes as were constructed served to demonstrate the value of globe maps, and this value once demonstrated, they served to awaken a still further interest in globe making, which bears abundant fruitage in the following century. ”

“ The Roll and Reinhold globe of the Dresden collection, bearing the inscription “Georg Roll et Joannes Reinhold elaborabant Augustae 1586,” is an exceedingly interesting instrument, unique in the manner of its construction and remarkably well preserved. It is of brass, having a diameter of 36 cm., and is furnished with numerous movable circles, a large meridian circle surmounted with an armillary sphere, and a brass horizon circle on which are marked the old and the new calendars, the names of the twelve months and of the important holy days. ”

“ Like many another of the world’s great men for whom, in the days of his youth, interested relatives or friends have chosen a life career only to find in later life the choice not well made, Tycho’s bent was not for the legal profession but for science, that is, for mathematics and astronomy. ”

“ In concluding, the author might refer to his interest in globes as dating from his early boyhood days, when, in that country school in western Illinois, bearing the name Liberty, for it had been established in the first years of the Civil War, he studied his geography and indeed his astronomy lessons with the aid of a terrestrial globe and an orrery. Can it be that we have revised our educational methods so far in this country as practically to have eliminated the intelligent use of aids so valuable in the study of the branches which globes concern? ”

“ On the other globe the forty-eight celestial signs will be arranged, in such sort that all the operations of the astrolabe may be performed most perfectly by the aid thereof. The plan of this work has proceeded from the Duke Cosimo, who desired to have all these parts of the earth and heaven brought for once fairly together in their just positions, exactly and without errors, to the end that they might be observed and measured, either apart or all together, as might be desired by those who study and delight in this most beautiful science. ”

“ As the new transatlantic discoveries of the Spanish and the Portuguese greatly quickened interest in geographical science and made necessary the construction of new maps in rapid succession, Germany, already a land in which the renaissance spirit had found an enthusiastic reception, and whose people were awake to every new interest, soon became a center for the spread of information concerning the new regions. Commercially important trade cities of this country had been for some time in intimate touch with the important maritime trade centers of Spain and Portugal. ”

“ The allusions of the naturalist Pliny (23-79 A. D.) to the spherical shape of the earth give us no particular intimation that he knew of the existence of terrestrial globes, but they are interesting as indicating a belief of his time in its spherical form, a belief, judging from the nature of the argument, apparently drawn from Aristotle. Referring to the shape of the earth, he observes that “everyone agrees it has the most perfect figure. We always speak of the ball of the earth, and we admit it to be a globe bounded by the poles. ”

“ Strabo alone among ancient writers, so far as we at present know, treats of terrestrial globes, practically such as we find in use at the present day. He thought that a globe to be serviceable should be of large size, and his reasoning can readily be understood, for what at that time was really known of the earth’s surface was small indeed in comparison with what was unknown. Should one not make use of a sphere of large dimensions, the habitable regions (Fig. 6) , in comparison with the earth’s entire surface, would occupy but small space. ”

“ It is especially interesting to note how a certain superiority in globe making exhibited itself, now in one country, now in another, with a lingering favor exhibited in Italy for the manuscript or the metal globe, while in the North, globes with copper engraved gore maps found increasing favor from the first, with a certain climax reached in the Netherlands in the days of Hondius and Blaeu. ”

“ In Justinian’s day, or near it, one Leontius Mechanicus busied himself in Constantinople with globe construction, and we have left to us his brief descriptive reference to his work. With stress laid, during the many centuries succeeding, upon matters pertaining to the religious life, there naturally was less concern than there had been in the humanistic days of classical antiquity as to whether the earth is spherical in form or flat like a circular disc, nor was it thought to matter overmuch as to the form of the heavens. ”

“ On the surface appear the forty-eight Ptolemaic constellations, each constellation having its appropriate figure, and the 1022 stars which had been located in Ptolemy’s day. The globe is so connected with the machinery, by which the various parts of the clock are made to perform their functions, that it makes one revolution on its axis every twenty-four hours, thus representing the rising and the setting of the several celestial bodies. ”

“ In its motion round its axis the globe carries with it the circles that surround it—namely, the equator, the ecliptic, the solstitial and equinoctial colures, while the meridian and horizon circles remain motionless, so that there are shown the rising and the setting, as well as the passage over the meridian of Strassburg, of all stars that are visible to the naked eye, and which appear above the horizon. ”

“ Marking off on each of these parallels or arcs both to right and left a distance representing five degrees of the earth’s longitude, he thus established the points through which to draw his meridians which marked the boundaries of each sector, leaving between the sectors equal spaces to be cut away should the sectors be used for pasting on the surface of a sphere. Every fifth meridian and every tenth parallel is drawn in black; the equator, the tropics, the polar circles, and the prime meridian are gilded. ”

“ His century closes with every evidence that the spherical theory, as Aristotle had expressed it nearly two thousand years before, could alone be accepted by geographers, and if spherical, the fact could be most impressively taught by the use of a material representation, that is, by means of a terrestrial globe. ”

“ In Ravenstein’s ‘Behaim, His Life and His Globe,’ we have perhaps the most scholarly treatment of its kind in any language, but the study is limited to the work of one man, the maker of the oldest extant terrestrial globe, which is dated 1492. ”

“ The modern age opens with an interest in the expansion of Europe overland eastward, with this interest soon to be followed by greater enthusiasm in transoceanic expansion. With the rapidly increasing knowledge concerning the hitherto unknown or but little known regions of the earth came a desire for better map making, came an interest intelligently directed in the construction of terrestrial globes on which the newly discovered parts might be represented in their relative positions as they are on the real spherical earth. ”

“ The sea is colored a dark blue, the land a bright brown or buff with patches of green and silver, representing forests and regions supposed to be buried beneath perennial ice and snow. Perhaps the most attractive feature of the globe consists of 111 miniatures, for which we are indebted to Glockenthon’s clever pencil. The vacant space within the Antarctic circle is occupied by a fine design of the Nürnberg eagle with the virgin’s head, associated with which are the arms of the three chief captains by whose authority the globe was made.... ”

“ It does not appear that Mercator felt himself bound to a strictly scientific representation and interpretation of the celestial bodies, for he pays more or less homage to astrology, inscribing on the horizon circle of his globe the horoscope as used by astrologists in calculating nativities, perhaps recognizing, from a business standpoint, the advantage of an appeal to certain superstitions which he found still lingering among both the learned and the unlearned. ”

“ In his ‘Orbis nova descriptio,’133 which he added to an edition of Ptolemy, issued in Rome in the year 1507 or 1508, he alludes to the difficulty of representing the earth upon a solid sphere, adding that the greater the size of the same the greater the difficulty there is in moving it, and that the larger the globe the more difficult it is to take in at a glance any considerable part of the map. ”

“ THE beginnings of the science of astronomy and of the science of geography are traceable to a remote antiquity. The earliest records which have come down to us out of the cradleland of civilization contain evidence that a lively interest in celestial and terrestrial phenomena was not wanting even in the day of history’s dawning. ”

“ It will be easy to make and to retain a proper comparison of the stars if we represent upon the sphere the real appearance or magnitude of the several stars. While neither the equator nor the tropics can be represented on the globe, it will not be difficult to ascertain the proper position of these circles. The first could be thought of as passing through that point on the graduated meridian circle which is 90 degrees from the poles. ”

“ In giving the globe a position which actually conforms to the world, the pole should be set to the north, and the movement of the sky can then be imitated by turning the globe to the left. Leontius, by way of summary and definition, at the conclusion of his treatise, speaks of a sphere as a solid having a surface, from all the points of which, if straight perpendicular lines of equal length be drawn, they will reach a point within called the center. ”

“ The prime meridian is made to pass through the Cape Verde Islands, islands referred to as “Insule Portugalensium invente anno Domini 1472.” This globe shows a striking resemblance to those of Schöner of 1515, a fact which has led Marcel to refer it to the Schönerian school, though not to attribute it directly to Schöner himself. A very important and interesting feature of the globe is the appearance of the name “America” no less than four times in the New World; twice in what we now call North America and twice in South America. ”

“ Description of the world globe, of the world and the entire terrestrial sphere here constructed and made to resemble a round ball and is so arranged that the merchant and every man may clearly see how that men live underneath us, and here may be seen how the sun moves about (the earth) with many wonderful things. Printed at Strassburg. ”