Lieut.-Gereral Sir Arthur Paget has presented to the Royal Geographical Society a copy of a world map in hemispheres, issued by the Dutch firm of Blaeu about the middle of the 17th century. This map, which is regarded as one of the masterpieces of 17th century cartography, is included in the large collection of Dutch maps in the British Museum in the volume known as the King's Book, presented by Dutch merchants to Charles IT, at the Restoration; but ths copy in the British Museum, having been divided into its separate hemispheres and cut round the margins, lacks some of the subsidiary diagrams and ornamentation found in the copy in the Royal Geographical Society's Map Room.
The map, which has been mount. ed on canvas and framed, measures about loft. by 6ft., the diameter of the circles representing the hemispheres is about 4ft. 10in, Geography is represented very much as in all the maps of the time, but it is considered to be the finest specimen known. It 1s particularly interesting for its representation of the latest Dutch discoveries, the results of Tasman's voyages which include New Zealand. The rap appears to have been copied largely, for it was used as the stand and map of the day. There was an almost identical representation about 30 years later. It seems clear, too, that a map produced by Jesuits in China, which it was suggested was from Dutch sources, was a copy of it The size of the two maps i8- so nearly the same that it is thought the difference may be due to the shrinkage of the paper or the overlapping of the sheets.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.