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The astrolabe: Its uses and

derivatives
Dr. R. T. Gunther
Published online: 27 Feb 2008.

To cite this article: Dr. R. T. Gunther (1927) The astrolabe: Its uses
and derivatives, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 43:3, 135-147, DOI:
10.1080/00369222708734541

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 OBSOLETE METHODS OF RECKONING TtME. 135

dial with the three systems of reckoning superimposed. At the equinox

all three systems show the same hour. The lines for the two other
systems meet on the hyperbolas which give the trace of the shadow of
the point of the style, at points which give the time of sunrise or sunset
at the solstices by the modern or polar dial. All that was necessary
was to draw these curves, find the time of sunset or sunrise on one
of them, and draw a line through the equinoctial point to the other
curve. In both cases nothing but the hour line was drawn, and the
estimation of subdivisions of time must have been a matter of consider-
able difficulty, especially in winter, as the lines were very close together.
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THE ASTROLABE: ITS USES AND DERIVATIVES.

By Dr. R. T. GUNTHER.

(With Illustrations.)
WITHIN the last few years all accessible cabinets of philosophical
apparatus have been so closely searched for scientific apparatus of
historic importance that it seemed well-nigh impossible that any ancient
instruments of the first-class could have eluded the scrutiny. Yet the
fact that the ancient instrumental equipment of the University of St.
Andrews has remained in " visible hiding," without its great geographical
significance being generally appreciated, gives ground for hope that in
the cupboard fastnesses of the Northern Kingdom, there may be yet other
trouvailles for the scientific explorer. Two of the St. Andrews astrolabes,
which, thanks to the kindness of Professor Stanley Allen, it has been
my privilege to examine, were made by English craftsmen, and are quite
the finest examples of their kind that are now in existence. They
belong, moreover, to a highly important period in the history of the
instrument and of geographic discovery. It may therefore not be
without historic interest briefly to set down their claims to our serious
attention.
For sixteen hundred years before the date of these instruments the
planispheric astrolabe was a paramount instrument by which travellers,
astronomers, and astro-physicians made observations of the altitude of
sun or stars, and rapidly computed the hour of the day or night from
those observations. By measurement of the altitude of the pole star the
latitude of the place of observation was readily found. The astrolabe
has, moreover, the merit of being portable, of being usable on the
moving deck of a ship, and of being accurate in proportion to its diameter
and to the skill with which it has been constructed.
The observational part of an astrolabe consists of a centrally pivoted
alidade with two sight-vanes with pinhole sights, which can be rotated
round a quadrant of degrees usually numbered from 0° at the horizontal
to 90° at the zenith. The verticality of the instrument is assured by
 136 SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE.

the symmetry and even balancing of its two sides, and by the suitable
construction of the suspensory rings and shackle by which it is hung.
The calculating part normally consists of three essential portions :—
(i.) A circular calendar scale, by which the sun's place in the zodiac
may be read off for any given day and month. Inasmuch as the
coincidence of the sun's place in the ecliptic and the calendar date change
in the course of years, astrolabe calendar scales do not remain true for
ever.
(ii.) A circular rotatable star-map, the rete, as it is called, showing
the ecliptic as a broad circular band. By its means the daily movement
of the sun and principal stars as they rise in the East and set in the West
may be demonstrated on the instrument.
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(iii.) An underlying plate engraved with a polar projection of the

circles of altitude of the celestial sphere. The projection is specially
constructed for the latitude of the place where the observation is made,
so that astrolabes are usually provided with a series of such plates to
cover a range of latitudes, e.g. from the latitude of Rome to that of
Paris, or from Paris to Edinburgh, for use on the various parallels in
the region for which the instrument is designed. In and before the
fourteenth century such regions were termed " climates," and in oriental
astrolabes each latitude plate was inscribed with the number of hours
between sunrise and sunset on the longest day of the year.
The superposition of the rete over a plate, and also of the alidade
on the back of a small French astrolabe, is well shown in the photo-
graphs in Dr. Cumming's article (see S.G.M., vol. xlii., 1926, p. 80).
The second figure shows the circular calendar already referred to,
and two of those numerous engraved diagrams and scales which reach
so high a degree of elaboration in Persian and Indian astrolabes,' and
with which the Oriental mind has intermingled intricate considerations
of judicial astronomy. In the upper semicircle are marked xthe lines of
the planetary hours: in the lower semicircle are the useful Shadow
Scales, or scales of umbra versa and umbra recta, which in conjunction with
the alidade served as a simple surveying instrument of well-nigh universal
occurrence. By their use measures of heights and distances were made
by the method of similar right-angled triangles, in which the hypo-
tenuses are formed by the line of sight, and by the part of the alidade
intercepted by the graduated sides of the shadow scales.
In one form or another all the parts of a typical astrolabe occur in
the St. Andrews instruments, which, moreover, present most interesting
features of their own.
The most important of these instruments is the great two-foot
astrolabe made by Humphrey Cole of London. In it the usual elaborate
star-map or rete with which astrolabes are generally provided has
been reduced to its simplest form, viz. to a zodiac ring and certain
circles, but of course, with the aid of the graduated alidade, star positions
can be found. The instrument is furnished with two plates, one
engraved by Cole with altnucantars or latitude circles drawn for latitude
 THE ASTROLABE : ITS USES AND DERIVATIVES. 137

52°, which corresponds with the latitude of Harwich, or of Banbury,

and would serve for central England ; the other, for lat. 56° 25', is
a much later addition, having been made by John Marke perhaps a whole
century after the rest of the instrument. It is interesting to note that
Marke was a London maker who undertook Scottish commissions for
instruments during the second half of the seventeenth century ; witness
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FIG. 1. —Cole's great 2-foot Astrolabe.

(University of St. Andrews.)
Reproduced by permission of the Editor of the Illustrated London News.

the accurately finished sun-dial at Drummond Castle for latitude 56° 20',
made for John, Earl of Perth. Latitude 56° 2 5 ' comes between St.
Andrews and Dundee, and is almost exactly that of the Palace of Scone,
the highest point .up the Tay to which sea-borne traffic could reach in
the seventeenth century. By another plate marked with horizon lines
it was possible to determine the time of sunrise and sunset in all
latitudes.
On the inner face of the base plate of this astrolabe is a finely
 138 SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE.

engraved Seaman's Quadrate, evidently copied from the Quadmtum

nauticum of Gemma Frisius,1 either directly or from one of the numerous
astrolabes made by his nephew, Walter Arsenius of Louvain. The sides
of the quadrate are engraved with marginal scales which are connected
by lines radiating from the centre in the direction of the thirty-two
points of the compass. Such a quadrate was of real assistance to navi-
gators for ascertaining by how much their latitude or longitude had been
increased or diminished after sailing a known distance on a definite
compass-bearing.
The back of Cole's astrolabe is engraved with a very accurately
drawn stereographic projection of the sphere upon the plane of the
meridian. This also appears to have been taken from an invention by
Gemma Frisius—the Universal Planisphere. For use it requires a
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diametral rule and an adjustable index, both missing in the St. Andrews
instrument, but perfect in a miniature model finished by Cole in the
previous year (1574), and preserved in the British Museum, where it is
known as "Prince Henry's Astrolabe." The method of finding the time
by the complete planisphere was as follows : First the altitude of the
sun is observed; then the rule is set in its first position by the peri-
pheral circle of degrees to the latitude of the place, and the tip of the
index is moved along the circle of the sun's declination to the presumed
hour. When in position, the movable parts are clamped, and the rule.is
slewed back so as to coincide with the equator. If the tip of the index
be then found to fall on the circle of altitude observed, the presumed
hour is taken as correct. If the index points to a greater altitude, the
hour is nearer mid-day : if to a less altitude, the hour is farther from
mid-day than was supposed. It was a method of trial and error. To
what extent it was practised we do not know, but it certainly had the
merit of being of universal application.
The date 1575 upon the large instrument indicates that it was in
making at the time when Humphrey Cole was engaged on the instru-
mental equipment for Martin Frobisher's first -voyage of discovery in
search of the North-West Passage to China. A bill which is still
extant shows that he provided «£50-worth of instruments for the voyage,
and an " astrolabium " was included in the list. At the same time, so
large and weighty a disc as this astrolabe at St. Andrews, which
scales over thirty pounds, could not have been used on a moving and
insecure platform, such as the deck of a sailing-ship. Had Frobisher
provided himself with one, he would have intended it for use on shore.
In actual use, although it is possible to hang a small astrolabe from the
thumb of the right hand, as Chaucer recommends, yet it is better to
support it on a spear stuck in the ground, as gunners often did when
range-finding, or better still, to hang it on a convenient branch of a tree
(Fig. 2). In this position large instruments were used for measuring
altitudes with sufficient accuracy.

1
G. Frisius, De astrolabo catholico, 1556.
 TltE ASTROLABE : ITS USES AND DERIVATIVES. 139

THE SEAMAN'S ASTKOLABE.

The use of the astrolabe on board ship has been referred back to
the time of Prince Henry the navigator. Columbus in the Journal of
His first voyage notes that:—
"On February 3, 1493, the North Star appeared very high, as it
does off Cape St. Vincent. The Admiral was unable to take the altitude
either with the astrolabe or with the quadrant, because the rolling caused
by the waves prevented it." •
" 1 3 December 1492, the Admiral calculated the number of hours
in the day and night and from sunrise to sunset. He found that 20
half-hour glasses passed, though he says that here there may be a mistake,
either because they were not turned with equal quickness, or because
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some sand may not have passed. He also observed with a quadrant,
and found that he was 34 degrees 1 from the equinoctial line."
To Pigafetta we owe fairly full notes on Magellan's navigational

1'ici. 2.—Astrolabe hung on the branch of a tree for measuring the distance of an
inaccessible object A.
(From J. de Roias, 1551.)

practice, 1519-1521, showing that he was continually taking altitudes

both of the pole star and of the sun at noon, his instrument being
probably an astrolabe.
In the early days of the Tudors a voyage was an adventure. Com-
manders of ships were often self-appointed traders, or chosen for their
prowess as proved soldiers, by preference those who hated the Spaniard,
rather than for their skill in navigation. In days of almost universal
piracy every ship had needs be a man-of-war, or run the risk of never
bringing cargo . safe to port. It is clear, then, that these captain-
adventurers had to rely largely on the practical experience of professional
seamen, and on the instructions on the use of instruments which were
contained in early books for navigators.
A good idea of their rough-and-ready methods is contained in an
account of a Voyage of Discovcrie beyond Nova Zembia, 1588 •—
N.B.—Seeke to amend the Plat (i.e. chart) you have, by many observations
—and thus make the new.
1. Observe the latitude in as many places as possible and note the place.
1
Blunder: it should be 20°.
 140 SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE.

2. Set with your compass how the land doth lie from point to point using
judgment for what lieth between each point.
3. Draw the biting in of the land, as well as the outlining points and head-
lands, and give them apt names at discretion. And mark the drawing wether the
land be high cliffs—low land, shady hills or whatsoever.
4. In passing keep the lead going, sounding at least once every glasse and note
the depth and manner of grounding.
5. Observe the flowing, and ebbing and how the tides do set in every place,
and what force the tide hath—as far as you can judge.
6. Use, as taught, the instruments for they aptly serve your purpose.
7. Take paper and ink and keep continual journal—daily; that all may be
showed and read at your return.
8. Note as many things as you can learn from report of the peoples wheresoever
you be.
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9. Diligently observing these orders, 'twill be easy for you to make a plat and
description of your voyage. So shall your notes be the sufficient answer looked to
from your hands.
Thus God prosper your voyage. Amen. (Hyclntt.)
These instructions have a very great significance, for no instruments
are named beyond the compass and the glass. And the use of none is
implied beyond what was necessary for determining latitude. Of longitude
there is no mention.
For the benefit of all who might desire to learn something of the
methods of those that go down to the sea in ships and occupy their
business in great waters, Mr. Blundeville appended a New and Necessaric
Treatise of Navigation to an Arithmetic that he compiled for "his very
dear friend Elizabeth Bacon, daughter of Sir Nicholas Bacon, and the
most loving and faithfull wife of his worshipfull friend Mr. Justice
Windham." Therein he drew attention to a practical defect in the use
of such a large astrolabe as this one of Cole's. He says that "broade
Astrolabes, though they bee thereby the truer, yet for that they are
subject to the force of the wind, and thereby ever mooving and unstable,
are nothing meete to take the Altitude of anything, and especially upon
the sea; which this to avoide, the Spaniards doe comonly make their
Astrolabes or Eings narrow and weightie, which for the most part are
not much above 5 inchs broad, and yet doe weigh at the least four
pound, and to that end the lower part is made a great deale thicker than
the upper part towards the Ring or handle. Notwithstanding, most of
our English Pilots that be skilful, doe make their Sea Astrolabes or
Rings sixe or seven inches broad, and therewith very massive and heavy,
not easie to be moved with everie wind." Examples of such sea
astrolabes are now very rare. An important specimen in the posses-
sion of Mr. S. Hoffman is associated with the name of Champlain ;
two others are exhibited in the Science Museum and with the Lewis
Evans Collection at Oxford.
In his Second Voyage (1577) Frobisher obtained his latitude by
observing the height of the sun, "bycause the long day taketh away the
light not only of the polar, but also Of all other fixed starres. And
there the north starre is so much elevated above the horizon, that with
 THE ASTROLABE : ITS USES AND DERIVATIVES. 141

the staffe it is hardly to be wel observed, and the degrees in the Astro-
labe are too small to observe minutes. Therefore we alvaies used the
staffe * and the sunne, as fittest instruments for this use."
"We see then that for navigational purposes at sea large astrolabes
were not used because they would catch the wind, and small astrolabes
could not be read to minutes, and therefore the Cross staff was found
more suitable, especially for measuring the altitude of the low sun in
high latitudes; but for meridional observations of a high sun in the
tropics the astrolabe remained the more suitable instrument.
A magnificent specimen of the mariner's astrolabe, by Elias Allen,
is preserved in the Physical Laboratory of St. Andrews. Its date, 1616,
shows it to have been contemporaneous with Baffin's last voyage to the
East. It is the largest English example known, being 1 foot 3 inches
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in diameter, and weighing 17 pounds. In the left-hand upper 'quadrant

the degrees are subdivided by transversal lines so that readings can be
made to one-fifth of a degree, i.e. to 12 minutes.

THE ASTROLABE AS A GEOGRAPHICAL INSTRUMENT.

Whereas the older astrolabes appear to have been used almost

exclusively suspended in a vertical plane, a special type of instrument
made its appearance in the sixteenth century which was intended for use
in the horizontal plane. These geographical astrolabes were almost
always provided with a magnetic compass, usually inlaid in the bracket,
but later on the compass box seems to have been inset in the upper
semicircle of the base plate of the instrument. Cole's great astrolabe
is one of these compass astrolabes.
The use of such astrolabes as circumferentors for surveying does not
appear to be very generally remembered. Only as recently as last
October Mr. Heawood, the learned librarian of the Royal Geographical
Society, pointed out that it was not till well on in the sixteenth century
that rough general maps began to give place to more detailed and accurate
representation based on actual field-work ; but he adds : " The methods
adopted are little known, though it is pretty well established that in
certain cases . . . some sort of triangulation was employed."2 " I n
this country [in] 1579 . . . we know little or nothing of the way in
which the work was carried out."
I suggest that the astrolabe or one of its derivatives was the surveying
instrument employed. When used for surveying, it would have been
carefully adjusted in a • horizontal plane, orientated by the magnetic
compass and used as a circumf erentor. A contemporary work by de Eoias
teaches the method (Fig. 3), and probably starting from the Low Countries
the astrolabe became a surveying instrument with which extended
triangulations were made in Europe, and the relative position of towns
fixed. The accuracy of the survey would of course depend on the
accuracy with which the instrument could be set up in the meridian and
1 In 1576 Frobisher paid 13s. 4d. for "an instrument of wood, a stafe named Balestetta."
2
Heawood, "Some Early County Maps," Geographical Journal, October 1926, p. 326.
 142 SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE.

the accuracy of the division of the circle. The illustration (Fig. 4) shows
a triangulation upon a measured base line from Brussels to Antwerp.
An obvious improvement that would occur to the practical surveyor
would be the lengthening of the compass needle. The larger compass
box, no longer finding room in the bracket, would naturally be inset in
the more capacious disc of the base plate itself. And thus would have
been evolved an instrument of the type of the St. Andrews circumferentor
(Fig. 5), which is to all intents and purposes the back of an astrolabe
with a large needle in the upper semicircle and the familiar shadow
scales of the astrolabe in the lower semicircle. This instrument, though
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Fie. 3.—Astrolabe used horizontally as a Circumfeventor.

(From J. tie-Routs, 1551.)

primarily used as a horizontal instrument, has retained the suspension

ring of its astrolabe ancestor for occasional use as a clinometer, or for
measuring altitudes. Similar instruments were made in Germany, Italy,
and France, and a beautiful example, exhibited by Sir John Findlay
at the meeting of the Eoyal Society of Edinburgh on February 14
last, shows how accuracy was obtained by the subdivision of the scale
of degrees by transversals or diagonal lines, in accordance with the
method already proposed by Digges in 1573, and later employed by
Tycho Brahe and by Elias Allen on the mariner's astrolabe (p. 141).
The practical surveyor must soon have found that there were many
things in ancient astrolabes that were of no use to him in the field.
Artillery officers especially, wishing to get the range of an enemy as quickly
as possible, would not need to be encumbered with the paraphernalia for
 THE ASTROLABE : ITS USES AND DERIVATIVES. 143

finding the place of the sun in the zodiac, or for ascertaining the times
of conjunctions or oppositions of the planets. And so simplified instru-
ments were devised. One of the earliest of these we consider to have
been the instruments usually ascribed to Leonard Digges, perhaps
invented about 1550, though not described until 1571. 1 The first of
these was his Theodelitus. To us it seems simple to have devised such
an instrument from first principles. But Digges did not do this. That
he derived it from a planispheric astrolabe is indicated by the name
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Fio. 4.—Astrolabe Survey of a part of Flanders.

(From J. de Roias, 1551.)

given to his invention, the Planisphere err Circle named Theodelitus.

The oldest extant example of such a Theodelitus known to me is
dated 1569, and is associated with a Square. It is a miniature of a
larger instrument, and is packed away in the interior of a wonderfully
constructed compendium of instruments believed to have been made by
1
Digges, Pantometria. An illustrated reprint of the passages describing Digges's
inventions has been issued under the title "The Theodelitus and Topographical Instrument
of Leonard Digges of University College, Oxford."—Old Ashmolean Reprints, iv., Oxford,
1927.
 144 SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE.

Humphrey Cole for Sir Francis Drake. Here an alidade is combined

with a circle, a square, and a magnetic compass. Cole's name for it is
The Geometricall Square. In modern language we should now call both
these instruments circumferentors.
Leonard Digges then designed a more complex instrument. It was
a universal instrument " serving most commodiously for all manner of
mensurations." This, 'the real ancestor of the modern theodolite, he
called an Instrument Topographkall. He thought it an instrument of such
perfection "that no manner, altitude, latitude, longitude, or profundity
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Fro. 5. —15-inch Dutch Circumferentor with Suspension Ring.

(University of St. Andrews.)

can offer itselfe, howsoever it be situate, which you may not both
readily and exactly measure."
Upon a square base plate of brass was inscribed a geometrical
square and a "planisphere or circle called Theodelitus," which was used
in the horizontal plane and on which moved an alidade. Upon this he
built up a semicircle in a vertical plane, so that it might turn about
a centre vertically above the middle of his horizontal alidade. The
diameter of the semicircle carried a rule which was provided with sights.
Also, within the theodelitus, Digges prescribed that there should be a
magnetic " needle or flie so rectified by a line making an angle equal"
to the variation of the compass, that the cross diameters of the plani-
sphere may be set true N.-S. and E.—W. A plummet and line were
also added to secure perpendicularity,
 THE ASTROLABE : ITS USES AND DERIVATIVES. 145

There is no evidence in literature that any such " instrument topo-

graphicall" was ever constructed. Indeed, no good illustration of it
appeared before 1646, when Dudley published an engraving. But through
the establishment of the Lewis Evans collection in Oxford, an original
instrument, made apparently to the design of L. Digges, has been dis-
covered and rescued. Knowing my interest in old instruments, my friend,
Mr. Last, then acting Librarian of St. John's College, showed me an
incomplete piece of old brass-work that he had found behind a chest in
the College Library. One saw at once that it was a clinometer for
measuring vertical angles, but it was only on cleaning that the date and
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FIG. 6.—12-inch Dipping Needle and Circle.

Inscribed "Ex dono Archebaldi Areskini Armigeri Londini."
(University of St. Andrews.)

name of the maker identified this piece as one of the most important of
early survey instruments now extant. The date is 1586 and the name
of the maker H. Cole. A few weeks later the compass box belonging
to the same instrument was found, but unfortunately the rest of the
instrument is lost. If, however, we imagine the part that is extant to
be fitted by its screw lugs to the alidade of a theodelitus, we have the
complete combined altitude and azimuth instrument—known to Digges
and Hopton (1611) as a " topographicall Instrument," but in modern
parlance as a Theodolite.
The other ancient instruments of geographical importance belonging
to St. Andrews include an Armillary Sphere and a large Dip Circle
(Fig. 6) presented by Archibald Areskine, in which the needle is mounted
on trunnions between two diametral bars in a graduated brass circle.
The circle, which appears once to have been glazed, is suspended by a ring
VOL. XLIII. K
 146 S c o t t i s h GEOGRAPHICAL JlAGAZtNE.

and swivel very like those of some astrolabes, and it may be suggested
that the instrument was intended to be used as an auxiliary for finding
the latitude from the magnetic inclination.
The Armillary Sphere (Fig. 7) is another fine example of Cole's work.
It stands 17 inches high over a five-inch original magnetic compass
on a base plate perforated by four holes, perhaps for secure fixing by
screws, suggesting that it may have been intended for use on board ship,
a use of the armillary sphere that is familiar to us from the portraits of
many an Elizabethan navigator. The middle of the sphere is occupied
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Flo. 7.—Armillary Sphere by Humphrey Cole, 1582.

(University of St. Andrews.)

by a rotatable brass plate engraved with the orthographic projection of

the sphere and bearing an alidade. The whole instrument recalls the
figure in Cortes' Brave compendio da la Sphera y da la aria de Navegar,
published in 1545, and it may represent the Sphera Nautica, which
Humphrey Cole made for Frobisher at a cost of £i, 6s. 8d. in 1576.
In conclusion, it is appropriate to add a few words on the subject of
the instrument-maker, Humphrey Cole himself. I have had the privilege
of examining closely some sixteen instruments bearing his signature.
They are all characterised by the excellence of their work or by the
possession of special features that distinguish them from others of their
 THE ASTROLABE : ITS USES AND DERIVATIVES. 147

class. Cole is certainly to be regarded as the leading scientific

instrument-maker of the Elizabethan age. By profession he was a
sinker of the dies at the Mint, where he was closely connected with the
mill-press department of Eloi Mestrel. But he was so poorly paid- that
he was glad to execute orders for instruments. As an expert in metal
ores and in metallurgical processes, he was employed by Lord Burleigh to
test the black ore, said to be gold, brought home from the North-West
by Frobisher. His skill as a consummate engraver in metal is shown by
his small Dials, e.g. the Jugge Dial of 1568 in the Lewis Evans collec-
tion ; the Drake Dial belonging to Greenwich Hospital; the dial in
the collection of the Society of Antiquaries in Edinburgh. In 1572 he
contributed an engraved map of the Holy Land to the Bishop's Bible
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published by Kichard Jugge. His great astrolabe and much of the

best of his work was executed about twenty years before Eobert
Gordon of Straloch came to own the astrolabe described in this Magazine
for March 1926. 1
It is sad to think that so great a genius should have been sp poorly
recompensed for his work. He died, in very reduced circumstances, in
1591, when letters of administration were granted to his widow,
Elizabeth, of the parish of St. Gregory near St. Paul's Cathedral in
London. A fully illustrated account of his work will appear in the
forthcoming volume of Archceologia.

THE POPULATION OF THE SCOTTISH LOWLANDS.

By P. E. CROWE, B.SC.

{With Sketch-Maps.)
»
A POPULATION map is the briefest way in which we can summarise the
human geography of a region, for it gives full weight to economic,
political, and historical factors, while at the same time illustrating the
results of the more definitely physical influences. It is a sketch of the
ensemble of existing conditions, and may play as suggestive a part
in the study of an " o l d " country as a vegetation map—a summary of
the results of the interaction of the varied physical factors of soil and
climate—does in the study of a " new " land. Both give a definiteness
and perspective which it is difficult to convey by words alone, and each
will provide, in its own sphere, an invaluable key to an eventual
regional subdivision.
A series of such maps, representing the distribution of population at
definite intervals over a considerable period of time, should have the
i May we suggest that the year 1597 engraved upon this Parisian instrument indicates
that Gordon acquired it in that year in view of his intention to go to live in Paris in the
following year for educational purposes, foreseeing that he would need a trusty instru-
ment with which to tell the local time ?