Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1944, Blaðsíða 329

REVUE LITTÉRAIRE
289
phers of his time, and whose work
is justly reckoned among our great-
est cultural treasures from the 17th
century. Even though nearly his
whole production remained in the
archives, he still lived to see a
modest part of his production print-
ed in the noble work in folio the
Newe Landesbeschreibung der zwey
Hertzogthiimer Schleswich und Hol-
stein, and scholars of later periods
have again and again used his hand-
made maps, which fortunately for
the most part have escaped the de-
struction that has befallen a sadly
large number of our written cultural
treasures of our past. When Erich
Pontoppidan in 1763 started the
publication of his famous Danske
Atlas he thus could not procure any
better material of maps of Denmark
than that of Johannes Mejer’s, and
so he had to content himself with
using this century old material as
basis for the preparation of the en-
graved map-plates included in the
work. Research workers in our
time, too, frequently examine Jo-
hannes Mejer’s original, handmade
maps, and in the geographical, topo-
graphical, and historical literature
there is ample evidence of the
abundance of knowledge included
in this material.
But it is far from utilized accord-
ing to its merits, and therefore
several prominent geographers and
historians have pointed out the de-
sirability of undertaking an edition
of Johannes Mejer’s maps, but the
proportions of the task and its de-
mands on the insight of the scholars
preparing the work in the field of
geodesy, geography, and history had
a checking effect on these endea-
vours.
From many quarters it will there-
fore the appreciated that Professor
N. E. Norlund with support from
the Carlsberg Foundation has taken
on the task to its full extent by
working up and editing all Johan-
nes Mejer’s preserved, hitherto un-
printed, handmade maps.
Johannes Mejer’s life and activity
has formerly been described by,
amongst others, Edv. Erslev in the
Geografisk Tidsskrift 1885—86 and
P. Lauridsen in his paper Kartograr
fen Johs. Mejer in the Historisk
Tidsskrift 1888, and even though
N. E. Norlund’s very thorough stu-
dies in the archives have also on this
point brought to light some fresh
details, these in all essentials corro-
borate the results and points of view
obtained by Lauridsen and Erslev.
Johannes Mejer was born at Hu-
sum, where his father was a deacon
and later vicar. After his father’s
death in 1617 he went to live with
his mother’s brother, Jungling, the
district judge of Krop, but thanks
to the interest of a Danish man of
high rank he was able to go to Co-
penhagen at an early age. Here he
threw himself into the study of ma-
thematics and astronomy, probably
under the guidance of Longomon-
tanus, Tycho Brache’s pupil, who