Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/149

 MAPES authorities in geography, contained most ex- travagant errors, such as giving to the Medi- terranean 1 ,400 miles greater length than be- longed to it ; and what is equally extraordi- ry, some of their gross exaggerations were continued in all the maps from that period down to the commencement of the 18th cen- iry. The system upon which Ptolemy's maps were drawn was that of stereographic pro- jection. After the discovery of America, the early maps representing the position of the new world relative to the old were exceedingly inaccurate. In one published in Venice in 1546 Asia and America are joined together in lat. 38. The great difficulty was in deter- mining the true longitude of places ; and until this could be done there was no means of avoiding such errors. In 1700 De Lisle pub- lished a new map of the world, and others of Europe, Asia, and Africa, founded on compara- tively accurate astronomical observations, and in them the errors introduced from the maps of the ancients were first corrected. The true system, of map making may be considered as at that time established. Maps were first en- graved on metal by Btickink and Schweyn- heim in 1478, and on wood by Holl in 1482. An " Essay toward a Circumstantial History of Maps," by Hauber, was published in TJlm in 1724. A historical account of the art is also given in a series of lectures by J. G. Kohl, published in the report of the Smithsonian in- stitution for 1856-'7. See also Santaran, Essai BUT la cartographic pendant le moyen age (3 vols., Paris, 1849-'52). MiPES, or Map, Walter, an English Latin poet, born about the middle of the 12th cen- tury, probably in Herefordshire, died about 1210. He studied in Paris, and after his return became a great favorite on account of his learning and courtly manners, especially with Henry II., by whom he was sent on a mission to the French court, and to the council sum- moned by Pope Alexander III., at which he was called on to refute the deputies of the "Waldenses. He received several livings, was made canon of the cathedrals of St. Paul and of Salisbury, precentor of Lincoln, incumbent of "Westbury in Gloucestershire, and finally in 1196 archdeacon of Oxford. His tastes were however for elegant literature, and he is only known at the present day as a genial, festive, and satirical writer, to whom is attributed a great portion of the humorous rhyming Latin Leonine lyrics and Norman French romances of the latter half of the 12th century. Of late years it has been doubted whether Mapes was really the author of the poems which pass under his name, but the fact that they were for several centuries so generally attributed to him has been thought to prove that he ex- celled in a peculiar style of writing, and that a part of them at least are his. He also wrote much prose, both in Latin and Anglo-Norman. Among the former is his De Nugis Curialium, a work containing much curious information MAPLE 137 of a very varied character ; and among the latter are a large portion of the existing ro- mances of the round table. The " Latin Poems commonly attributed to Walter Mapes" were printed in London by the Camden society in 1841, and De Nugis Curialium in 1850. MAPIMI, a desert in N. Mexico, extending from the great bend of the Rio Grande, in lat. 30, southward to the vicinity of Parras, in lat. 25 30', and averaging 2 degrees in width. It embraces two thirds of the state of Coahuila and parts of Chihuahua and Durango, and consists chiefly of a vast basin called the Bol- son, or pocket, bounded N. by the Sierra del Carmen, E. by a portion of the Sierra Madre, and W. by low ranges of mountains. From the mountains to the northeast the rivers Es- condido, Alamos, and Nadadores take their rise, but in the central basin there is no water except the brackish lagoons called Jaco, Agua Verde, Cayman, and El Muerto. Nomadic Apaches are the only inhabitants, but well preserved mummies have been found in caves near the S. border. There is rarely any vege- tation. Meteoric iron and coal abound, and the precious metals are believed to exist. Only the S. portions, called the Cation de San Marcos, and the plains of La Paila and La Ban- durria, have been explored with any care. The Kickapoo Indians established themselves in 1864 near the N. border of this desert, and remained there till 1873, when they were re- moved to their former reservation in the Indian territory. At the W. entrance to the Bolson is situated the mining town of Mapimi, with 5,000 inhabitants. The emperor Maximilian erected a department under this name, with limits differing from those of the desert. MAPLE, the common name of trees of the genus acer (Celtic c, hard), belonging to the natural order sapindacece, of which with two other genera it forms the suborder acerinece. There are about 50 species, distributed in North America, Europe, northern Asia, Java, and the Himalayas ; some are small shrubs and others large trees, frequently with a saccharine sap and rarely with a milky juice ; the leaves are opposite, deciduous, simple, palmately three- to seven-lobed, rarely entire. The flowers are in axillary and terminal racemes and usually polygamo-dioecious ; i. e., some have stamens only, others pistils only, or both organs may be in the same flower ; the usually five-parted calyx is colored and deciduous ; petals want- ing, or when present as many as the lobes of the calyx ; stamens four to twelve, inserted upon a disk ; pistil of two united ovaries with two styles ; from the back of each ovary grows a wing converting the fruit into two one-seeded keys. Our North American species, of which there are about 10, differ in their time of flow- ering ; in some the flowers appear long before the leaves, others produce their flowers at the time the leaves unfold, and in others they do not appear until after the foliage is well de- veloped. Our commonest species is the red