Tímarit Þjóðræknisfélags Íslendinga - 01.01.1962, Page 94

76
TIMARIT ÞJÓÐRÆKNISFÉLAGS ÍSLENDINGA
One other legend on Mercator’s
map not noted by Prof. Taylor near
an island outside one of the four
channels reads, Polus magneies re-
spectu insulari (or—um) capitis
Viridis. This is probably derived
also from the Inventio foriunata
and strengthens the view that the
Greenlanders located the magnetic
rock in the vicinity of Thule, for
this island is placed in the sea off
the Bergi regio which corresponds
to the Planora de Berga or extrema
Bergi of Ruysch.
What then shall we conclude
about Inventio fortunata? Unfortu-
nately we know really nothing
about its contents except what Mer-
cator tells us in his summary of
Jacobus Cnoyen’s book. But is there
any reason to believe that it con-
tained much more on the northern
regions than what he has summa-
rised? If so there really was noth-
ing new in it with the exception of
the use of the astrolabe and pos-
sibly the employment of degrees of
latitude and even here we cannot
be certain as to what is meant.
The mention of the high pressure
areas of the polar region cannot be
regarded as new for it would have
required lengthy observation to es-
tablish it. All the rest was simply
old stuff, long familiar to the Ice-
landers in Greenland. The author
of the Inveniio, far from showing
a personal acquaintance with the
regions of the north must rather be
accused of garbling the information
he received in one way or another
and being indirectly responsible for
such absurdities as the representa-
tion of the northern regions on the
maps of Ruysch and Mercator. It
is not always realised that the rep-
resentation of Greenland and ad-
jacent region goes back far beyond
the fifteenth century and that there
is not much to choose between the
depiction of Greenland on the maps
of Claudius Clavus Swart in the fif-
teenth century and that shown on
the Medici Marine Chart of 135137
or that of Greenland, Baffin Island
and Hudson Bay on the Genoa World
Map of 1447 or 145738 not to mention
earlier maps. This, however, will
have to be dealt with at another
time.
Finally it may be apposite to re-
call what Sir Thomas Blundeville
had to say about the author of the
Invenlio foriunaia, whosoever he
may have been. Sir Thomas wrote:
“Neither doe I beleeve that the
Fryer of Oxford, by virtue of his
Art Magicke, euer came so nigh the
Pole to measure with his Astrolabe
those cold parts together with the
foure floods, which Mercator & Ber-
nardus do describe both in the front,
and also in the nether end of their
mapes, & unlesse hee had some colde
devil out of the middle Region of
the aire to be his guide, and there-
fore I take them in mine opinion
to be meer fables.”39
I think his judgment very sound.
37. A. E. Nordenskiýld, Periplus, Stockholm, 1887, No. X; Nansen, Noríhern Mists,
II, 234-236.
38. Ibid. pp. 286-287. Dúason points this out (Landkönnun, pp 298-300).
39. His Exercises coniaining eighi Treaiises, London, 1613, p. 760 (here cited from
de Costa, “Arctic Exploration”, p. 31).