Academy. Hitherto the Ptolemaic cartography had exerted an overpowering influence. Errors in the location of places still remained on the maps, attributable in large part to that ancient cosmographer, who continued for so long a period a most influential teacher of geography and map making after the renaissance of his ‘Cosmographia’ in the early fifteenth century. Among the greatest errors still to be found in the maps in Delisle’s day was the excessive length given to the Mediterranean, this being about sixty-two degrees of longitude instead of its correct length, which is about forty-two, and the extension of Asia much too far to eastward, together with other errors following upon these.[121] Delisle, having the support of the Royal Academy, and of the King himself, was able to carry through the reforms in map construction, the fundamental principles of which, it is true, had been suggested before his day, based upon such astronomical observations as were those of Cassini, Picard, and La Hire, wherein there had been an attempt to determine the exact location in longitude of important places on the earth’s surface and wherein they had been aided by the use of the telescope. Through the employment of this instrument they were able to fix the exact time of eclipses and determine the time of the transit of the moons of Jupiter.[122] In the ‘Journal des Savants’ of the year 1700 is given a letter addressed to the engraver and map maker, Nolin, and signed “Delisle.” In this there is reference to a manuscript globe of the year 1696, the implication being that Guillaume was its author.[123] The probability is that we have here a letter written by Claude, the father, it being hardly probable that the son drafted a globe map at the age of twenty-one. We, however, know, as before stated, that he achieved great distinction through the maps he published in the year 1700, when he was but twenty-five, and we are also informed that even at the age of eight he attracted attention to himself through the maps he drew to illustrate ancient history. In the same year that he published his epoch-making maps he issued the first edition of his globes, those having a diameter of about 31 cm. and those having a diameter of about 15 cm. The globe balls were constructed of papier-mâché covered with plaster over which were pasted the gore maps, each map composed of twelve parts with the usual polar discs. The engraver, we are told, in a brief legend on the terrestrial globe, was Carolus Simonneau, “Car. Simon. del. et sculpsit.” On the larger of the terrestrial globes is the title legend “Globe terrestre dressé sur les observations de l’Académie Royale des sciences et autres mémoires,” and a dedication reading, “À Son Altesse Royale Monseigneur Le Duc de Chartres. Par son très humble et très obéissant serviteur G. De l’Isle Géographie. Berey sculpsit.”