Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/520

 GEOGRAPHY

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GEOGRAPHY

Kino (1G44-1711), Sedlmayer (1703-1779), and Bae- gert (1717-1777). We find that between 1752 and 1706 — eighty years before Meyer, the celebrated cir- cumnavigator of the globe — the Jesuit Wolfgang Beyer reached Lake Titicaca. Father Manuel Ra- mon sailed up the Cassiquiare from the Rio Negro to the Orinoco in 1744 and anticipated La C'ondamine, Humboldt, and Bonpland in proving that this branch connected these streams. Father Samuel Fritz, from 16S4 on, recognized the importance of the Maranon as the main river and source of the Amazon. He drew the first reliable map of the entire course of the stream. The Jesuits Techo (1673), Harques (1687), and Duran (1638) wrote about Paraguay, and d'Ovag- lia (1646) about Chile. Abyssinia, the most interesting country in Africa, was suddenly closed to missionaries about 1630. It was not until 1699 that the Jesuit Father Bri5vedent, with the physician Poncet, once more ventured up the Nile and into the interior of the country; but in so doing he lost his life. The Capu- chins Cavazzi (1654), Carli (1666), MeroUa (1682), and Zucchelli (1698) accomplished remarkable re- sults in the Congo region. Even as late as the year 1862 the geographer Petermann made use of their writings to construct a map of that region.

But the greatest scientific triumphs attended the work of the missionaries in Asia. Especially remark- able were the successful attempts to penetrate into Tibet, a feat which Europeans did not repeat until our times. After Andrada, whom we have alreatly mentioned, followed Fathers Grueber and d'Orville, who reached Lhasa from Pekin in 1661 and went down into India through the Himalaya passes. The Jesuit Desideri (1716-29) and the Capuchins Delia Penna (1719-1746) and Beligatti (1738) spent consid- eraVjle time in this country.

To these travels must be added the splendid achieve- ments in cartography and astronomy of the Jesuits, which, about 1700, caused a complete revolution in the development of geography. It was due chiefly to them that one of the most powerful States of that time, France, lent its support to this science, thus offering an example that resulted in a series of govern- mental subventions giving the development of geog- raphy its most powerful impetus. In 1643 the Jesuit Martin Martini (1614-61) landed in China. During his sojourn he acquired a personal knowledge of most of the provinces of that immense empire and collected his observations in a complete work, that appeared in 1651, entitled "Atlas Sinensis". In Rich thof en's opinion it is "the fullest geographical description of China that we have". Moreover, it contains the first collection of local maps of that country. Athanasius Kircher further drew the attention of scholars the world over to the Celestial Empire in his "China monumentis illustrata" (1667). He, too, had at his disposal information gathered by missionaries. And finally the Belgian Jesuit Verbiest succeeded in arous- ing the interest of Louis XIV by the advices he sent home to Europe. At his request, six of the most learned Jesuits went to China in 1687; they were Fathers Bouvet, Fontaney, Cierbillon, Le Comte, and Visdelou. They bore the title of "royal mathemati- cians" and at the expense of the French Crinvii were equipped with the finest instruments. From 1691 to 1698 Gerbillon, court astronomer to the emperor, made several excursions to the hitherto unknown re- gion on the northern boundary of China. He pre- sented a map of the environs of Peking to the emperor who then ordered the survey of the Great Wall, which was completed by Fathers Bouvet, R^gis, and Jar- toux. This achievement was followed in the suc- ceeding years by the mapping of the entire empire. Fathers Jartoux, Fridelli Cardoso, Bonjour (Augus- tinian), de Tartre, de Mailla, Hinderer, and Ri^gis undertook the work. By 1718 the map was finished. In addition to China proper it embraced Manchuria

and Mongolia, as far as the Russian frontier. Simul- taneously, a delineation of Tibet as far as the sources of the Ganges was begun. The map ranks as a mas- terpiece even to-day. It appeared in China itself in 120 sheets and since that time has formed the basis of all the native maps of the country. Fathers Espinha and Hallerstein extended the survey to Hi. The Jesuit Du Halde edited all the reports and letters sent to him by his brethren and published them in 1735 in his " Description g^ographique, historique, chronologique, politique et physique de I'empire de la Chine et de la Tartaric chinoise" (4 vols.). The material for the maps in this work was prepared by d'Anville, the greatest geographer of his time. All modern maps can be traced back to his "Atlas de la Chine". Still later, there were published in fifteen volumes the "Memoires concernant I'histoire . . . des Chinois, par les missionaires de Pekin" (Paris, 1776-91).

Many of the missionaries belonged to the learned societies of Paris, London, and St. Petersburg. They exchanged letters on scientific topics with such re- nowned scholars as Leibniz, Linna-us, John Ray, Du- perron, Delisle, Marinoni, Simonelli, and others. The influence of widely read periodical publications is also noteworthy. Among them were the " Lettres ^difi- antes et curieuses ^crites des missions 6trangcres", numerous volumes and repeated editions of which were published in the eighteenth century. They con- tained a mass of geographical material. The science of geography profited by this intercourse between the Jesuits and the European scientists. The greatest need at that time was the definite determination of astronomical positions in order to construct a really faultless map of the world. Thanks to the sound training in astronomy of the Jesuit missionaries before they went abroad, their missionary stations soon gathered many excellent determinations of latitude and longitude. As early as the middle of the seven- teenth century they produced a great mass of reliable data from China. Between 1684 and 1686 they deter- mined the exact position of the Cape of Good Hope, of Goaand Louveau (Siam). This enabled them to make a correct map of Asia which had imtil then shown an error of nearly 25 degrees of longitude towards the east. By order of the French Academy, Father Louis Feuillee, the learned Franciscan, and pupil of Cassini, revised uncertain positions in Europe and America. He made surveys in Crete, Salonica, Asia Minor, and Tripoli, in 1701-02, in the Antilles and Panama, 1703- 05, in South America, 1707-12, and in the Canary Isles, 1724. Thus Delisle and d'Anville, the reformers of map-making, built up their work on the scaffolding furnished them by the Jesuits. In the attempts to de- termine the length of a degree of longitude made in the seventeenth century, the Jesuits took a very promi- nent part. As early as 1645 Fathers Riccioli and Grimaldi tried to determine the length of a degree on the meridian. Similar work was done in 1702 by Father Thoma in China; in 1755, by Fathers Bosco- vich and Maire in the Papal States; in 1762, by Father Liesganig in Austria, and in the same year by Father Christian Mayer, in the Palatinate, also by Fathers Beccaria and Canonica in northwestern Italy (1774).

Besides the Jesuits engaged in geodetic work in Abyssinia, South America, and China, we meet with Father Velarde (1696-1753), who published the first approximately accurate map of the Philippines about 1734. G. Matthias Vischer, parish priest of Leonstein in Tyrol (1628-95), drew a map of Upper Austria in 1669 that was republished as recently as 1808. Father Liesganig, in conjunction with Fathers von Mezburg and Guessmann, designed maps of Galicia and Poland. Father Christian Mayer drew a map of the Rhine from Basle to Mainz, and Father Andrian, a chart of Carinthia. Fathers Grammatici (16S4-1736), De- challes, and Weinhart must also be mentioned.

In view of the lively intercourse between the mis-