=G.= EARLY MAPS OF THE ATLANTIC OCEAN.—_By the Editor_—The cartographical history of the Atlantic Ocean is, even down to our own day, an odd mixture of uncertain fact and positive fable. The island of Bresil or Brazil was only left off the British Admiralty charts within twenty years (see Vol. II. p. 36), and editions of the most popular atlases, like Colton’s, within twenty-five years have shown Jacquet Island, the Three Chimneys, Maida, and others lying in the mid-sea. It may possibly be a fair question if some of the reports of islands and rocks made within recent times may not have had a foundation in temporary uprisings from the bed of the sea.[496] We must in this country depend for the study of this subject on the great collections of facsimiles of early maps made by Santarem, Kunstmann, Jomard, and on the Sammlung which is now in progress at Venice, under the editing of Theobald Fischer, and published by Ongania.[497] We may place the beginning of the Atlantic cartography[498] in the map of Marino Sanuto in 1306, who was first of the nautical map-makers of that century to lay down the Canaries;[499] but Sanuto was by no means sure of their existence, if we may judge from his omission of them in his later maps.[500] [Illustration: FIFTEENTH CENTURY. A conventional map of the older period, which is given in Santarem’s _Atlas_ as a “Mappemonde qui se trouve au revers d’une Médaille du Commencement du XVe Siècle.”] [Illustration NOTE.—The above maps are reduced a little from the engraving in _Allgemeine Geographische Ephemeriden_ (Weimar, 1807), vol. xxiv. p. 248. The smaller is an extract from that of Fr. Pizigani (1367), and the larger that of Andreas Bianco (1436). There is another fac-simile of the latter in F. M. Erizzo’s _Le Scoperte Artiche_ (Venice, 1855).] [Illustration: CATALAN MAP, 1375. After a sketch in St. Martin’s _Atlas_, pl. vii.]