Geography Posters, Charts, Photographs & Maps Index, pg 2/2
atlas, cartographers, travel ideas, images and illustrations for classrooms and homeschoolers.

Atlas Geographique illustrates the art and science of geography as perceived at the beginning of the 20th century. Surrounded by the natural world, representatives of the Americas, Middle East, Asia and Africa, gather about a seated figure of Europe who instructs the other continents and peoples from the book in her lap. Empiricism, anyone?

Wonder where the word atlas comes from?

Atlas the Titan - In the mythological battle between the Titans and the Olympians, the victor Zeus condemned the defeated Atlas to keep the Earth and Sky separated forever. Atlas is depicted holding up the celestial sphere and standing on the Earth.

Learning this story is a great relief to my childhood question of 'what was Atlas standing on if he was holding up the Earth?'

And guess what? - this isn't the "Atlas" that lent the name to the "bound collection of maps" that we call an 'atlas' today. The use of the word atlas can be traced back to the cartographer Mercator who dedicated his collection of maps to the mythological King Atlas of Libya, though he did not include the name in his title. Oh - and then there are the Atlas Mountains in northwest Africa.

Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa
c. 63 BC - 12 BC, Roman Empire

Agrippa, a Roman general, statesman, and architect, was also a geographer, charged with doing a survey of the Roman Republic/Empire by Augustus. He is also noted as improving the civic infrastructure of Rome which included aquaduct and the sewer system repairs, and the designing first Pantheon (pan = all + theon = gods) which was destroyed by fire in 80 AD.

Agrippa's legacy includes his grandson Caligula, and great-grandson Nero.

Eratosthenes
b. 276 BC; Cyrene (Libya)
d. 194 BC; Alexandria

Eratosthenes of Cyrene was a Greek mathematician, poet, athlete, geographer, astronomer and historian. He studied and worked at Alexandria, the capitol of Hellenized Ptolemaic Egypt, becoming the second librarian of the famed Alexandrian Library.

Eratosthenes created a map of the world based on the available geographical knowledge, is the first known person to have calculated the circumference of the Earth, and devised a system of latitude and longitude.

• The Librarian Who Measured the Earth

Cartographer Gerardus Mercator
b. 3-5-1512; Flanders
d. 12-2-1594: Duisburg

Mercator made a cylindrical map that was the favorite of navigators and explorers because it could represent lines of true course, today we know that kind of map as a Mercator Projection.

What would you think if you were told Mercator was a precursor to Henry Ford? Mercator developed a technique to mass produce globes with paper mache, which was much faster than hand carving a block of wood or metal. Mercator's mass production technique made a spherical map less expensive and therefore available to more people. Who else was mass producing information?