From Sea-Serpents to Science                        5

written Cardes are much better and perfecter." * These "written
Cardes" were the portolan manuscript charts, so called because
they were often the creations of sea-going Portugese, who traced,
with amazing accuracy, the coast-lines of Europe, Africa and
 

A portolan manuscript chart of the \\csrcrn .Mediterranean drawn
about 1590 by Jaume Oliva, vho is believed to have been a sea captain.
The view is west, \vith the Straits of Gibraltar in the upper left corner.
The original map is in rich colors.

Asia. Columbia boasts an atlas by Jaume Oliva, member of a cele¬
brated family of portolano makers.

Abetting the imagination of tlie cartographers were the authors
of early travel books. There are many of these books at Columbia
and some, like Theodore De Bry's Voyages, have lively engrav¬
ings of natives encountered in the New World. (One of the illus¬
trations is reproduced as the frontispiece to tliis issue of Cohimns.)

* The Light of Navigatiou.