Editor's Note: a number of years back, American Heritage produced reproductions of come of the most important early maps of America. An accompanying booklet provided interesting information that never appeared in the magazine, so we have digitized and edited it and added it here.
Ever since man scratched lines in the dust to describe the lay of the land around him, he has been fascinated by the problems of how to draw an accurate picture of his world. Very early — if not in primitive times, at least in antiquity — the map maker learned all the elements of scientific cartography. What he lacked for a long time were the proper tools to map large areas: the telescope, to determine latitude, and the pendulum clock, for longitude. In the meantime, his picture of the world fitted in between heaven above and hell below.
