Mistaken maps

By Fred Maynard

The history of map-making is full of educated guesses. As late as the 19th century Africa and Australia contained vast, unexplored interiors. Cartographers often used experience and logic to infer the lay of the land. Unsurprisingly, they were frequently wrong. Since antiquity, for example, the Nile had been known to be a river of enormous length, and because rivers often emanated from mountains it was thought there must be a large mountain range at its source. The Mountains of the Moon appeared on maps of Africa up until the 1800s, when explorers finally confirmed there was no such thing.

In his new book, “The Phantom Atlas”, Edward Brooke-Hitching gathers a rich selection of these mistakes. They range from honest errors to the mythical or mendacious. One map from 1766 shows Patagonia, and includes pictures of heavily bearded giants walking around with bows and arrows. Another of Java la Grande, a landmass in the southern hemisphere first reported by Marco Polo, depicts the locals riding on horseback and harvesting coconuts while fantastical sea creatures swim offshore.