John Dee and the map of North-East Asia

By E. G. R. Taylor, London

John Dee’s Volume of Great and Rich Discoveries (f), although hardly living up to the promise of its title,
is nevertheless of some interest and importance as providing direct and detailed evidence of how an Elizabethan
cosmographer went to work and formed his conclusions about some little known part of the world. The manu­
script was writ ten very hastily (‘speedily ruffled together’) during the spring months of 1577, at a time when
the English nobility and the merchant class had alike been aroused to the possibilities latent in overseas
exploration. Frobisher was just leaving for his second voyage to the North-West Passage—actually in search
of rumoured gold—while Drake’s plans ‘for Alexandria’ must already have been under consideration. It
was Dec’s belief that the ultimate goal of British enterprise should be that part of the reputed rich mainland
lying south of Java (in fact Australia) which was prominently shown on the recent maps of Mercator and Orte-
lius as Locach or Beach, ’rhe main warrant for the existence of this country (but with confirmation from other
sources) was to be found in Book HI, Chap. 8 of Marco Polo’s Travels, which in Ramusio’s version reads
as follows:

“Partendosi da quest ‘Isola di Giava si navigar verso “Departing from this Island of Java we navigated to­
mezzo di & Garbin settecento miglia & si ttuovano due wards the South and South-West seven hundred miles &
Isolc . . . Et partendosi da queste, come s’ha navigato found two Islands there ... And departing from these, we
per Scirocco da cinquanta miglia, si truova una provincia, navigated 50 miles to the South-East and encountered land,
ch’c di terra firma molto riccha & grande nominata which is very rich and big & is called Lochac . . . Gold
Lochac.. . Hanno oro in tant abondanza ch’alcuno non is so abundant there, that nobody would believe it..
esse potrebbe mai crcdarc...

Dec was, however, very reticent in his discourse about this province of Terra Australis (actually arising
from a confusion in Marco Polo’s narrative), for as he read in a book of Richard Eden’s wich lay before him:
“As touching these trades and voyages, as in manner in all the sciences, there are certain secrets not to be
published and made common to all men’’. The main topic, therefore which he discusses is the route by which
this goal could be reached. As the globe showed, the shortest way was by the north-east passage, and it is for the
feasibility of this passage that he argues, actually going so far as to declare: “When upon cither mine own
Asiatical Travels, or of other men their account rendered (by my assignment and instruction dealing therewith)
there shall have been made an Asiatical Survey of the north-cast quarter of Asia; then (through God his
goodness) you are to receive the Image of the verity Chorographical, yet greatly missed, to the complement
of one of the chief portions of the whole world”. Dec was then a man of fifty, hardly suited to Arctic travel,
but as adviser to the Muscovy Company he had opportunity to give instruction to their scamastcrs.
Current opinion was on the whole unfavourable to a passage through the Scythian Ocean, as Dee termed
the sea to the north of Asia. According, for example, to J. C. Scaligcr the Asiatic Coast bowed back to Green­
land, while many Italian maps linked north-cast Asia to north-west America. Indeed, even as Dec was writing,
his friend Mercator sent him a report of a traveller who said he had gone from Mexico to Cathay, merely by
crossing a great river. He placed, however, his strongest reliance on the maps in his copy of Ortelius’ Tbeatrum>
particularly those of Asia and of Tartaria and the general World Map. He had before him, too, Mercator’s
large-sheet map of Europe (1572) and his great Hydrographical Chart of 1569. The two famous Flemish
cartographers both showed Arctic passages, although Mercator had thrust Gape Tabin as far north as 83!?N.,
and Dee enquired closely of each of them upon what authorities he had relied. Ortelius, as it chanced, was
able to visit him personally that spring, while Mercator wrote at least twice. As to the 1569 map, on Mercator’s
new projection, he makes a rather surprising remark (coming from a mathematician) after finding some
discrepancy between it and the rather later map of Europe. ‘The diversity of these two longitudes set by(*)

(*) British Museum MSS. Cotton. Vitcllius C. VII.

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Map of Gilbert’s discoveries by Joi
(Tbt Fret Public Library of Pbilad
S DISCOVERIES BY JOHN DEE, CA. 1582

^ree PubIit Library of Philadelphia)

 Mr. Gerardus cometh chiefly upon the asymmetrical framing of the universal description {i.e. the world
map) with meridians parallels, wherein it is impossible to observe the longitudes and latitudes of places
truly’. This suggests that Dee did not realize the principle on which the map was drawn, which Mercator
himself had not revealed. The point is, however, not relevant to this article. For the most part Dec found that
the maps of his old friend, ‘the expert and grave Cosmographer’ as he terms him, agreed closely with his
own conclusions, ‘but for the rest of the Scythian tract (/.«. beyond the Ob river) to the Oriental Ocean, I
am very sorry his labour took a wrong bias, as he himself now, and any other discreet geographer, by very
many reasons and evidence before set down, may infer and infallibly conclude’.
Among his authorities Dee referred very constantly to a chart drawn by Stephan Borough who had reached
Vaygatz Island in 1556, as well as to the geographical data gathered by Anthony Jenkinson (with whom
also he was in personal consultation) when travelling in Muscovy. Jenkinson had argued publicly in 1565/6
for the north-east as against the north-west passage, his opponent being Humfrey Gilbert, and Dee quotes in
particular the report the Englishman had obtained from a Colmak that there was a strong westward set of
tides and currents along the Asiatic coast, which suggested a through passage. He also very naturally made
extensive use of the numerous narratives concerning Asia which were conveniently collected in Ramusio’s
Viaggi, a work from which he is constantly quoting. But as the catalogue of his own great library shows, he
had many other sources of information, and there is no reason to doubt his general assertion as to his method:
“I thought good in all this Discovery Treatise to alledge the Authorities............ I use not to alledge any
authority upon any man’s report before published unless I examine the original Author thereof if I can
come by it printed or written. And am not squeamish or ashamed to write the homely Latin phrase of any
writer so the truth or probability be contained in the real content or matter by that language meant to be
declared”. In some cases he can actually quote in the original Greek, and he is not sparing of criticism, even
of the ancients. ‘One occasion of erring (he writes) has been Ptolemy in his wrong turning and describing of
Sinus Magnus in that place and in that respect where no Sinus is .... to his no small disgrace. I am sorry
for it’. And he is particularly emphatic in pointing out the corruption of the various texts of Marco Polo,
advising the reader to attempt to draw a ‘chorographical plat’, i.e. map, to illustrate them, ‘and you shall find
such contradictions and repugnances that you shall not be able to put the description down .... wherefore
I dare not lean unto any one such naked testimony alone’.
Among general sources of error he notes the carelessness of compositors and proof-readers; the use of
words of ‘vast scope’ such as ultra, contra, versus, lending themselves to geographical misinterpretation; and
the ignorance of copyists and translators about the numbers and points of the compass. Here he sets out the
Italian system of eight named points, from which further names are derived by combination. Then, too, he
deprecates the careless employment of place-names. People use Cathay, China, Seres, Mangi as though they are
all one, while Locach (Lochac' is in some copies of Marco Polo called Beach (Mercator puts both names on his
map). While on this subject Dec seizes the opportunity to protest about a matter on which he felt deeply:
“As note in our days (he says) most confusedly and unlcarncdly the name of India is wrested and violently
applied to Atlantis great mainland by the term of the West India’. He himself always called America ‘Atlantis’,
while he identified Ptolemy’s Sina with China, having Canton as its chief city, Serica was Cathay in which
stood Canbaluc, while Mangi lay between Cathay and the eastern ocean, its chief port Quinsay.
Dee shows, in fact, every evidence of critical care in his readings, yet he can accept as authentic a story
by one Ethicus I Uster (’) as reported by “St. Jerome” of two descendants of Japhet (living therefore in Europe)
brothers named Pheneth and Beath (‘or Beach’) of whom the former was said to be the first discoverer by sea,
‘and that out of the Scythian Ocean, sailing in manner by shores’. That of these discoveries ‘Beach’ had his
own province, called by his own name ‘is very likely’ says Dee, and goes on to identify this conjectural province
‘lying near the sea coast’ with the country (otherwise Locach) rich in gold which was so marked and named
on Mercator’s map, and was ‘one of your principal places to trade to’. He was on much sounder ground when
he advocated as the basis of a map a new determination of Arctic longitudes with particular reference to their
correspondence with the meridians of places in Asia and on the Indian Ocean. An expedition could then sail
(x) The cosmography of Ethicus professes to be a translation from the Greek by a priest named Jerome. It is probably
7th Century in date.

104
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east ‘till wc be sure that we are in due place to turn our course southerly to the New and Oriental Guinea,
and so........ to enter and proceed upon the further discovery of that part which is least known to Christian
men.......... most apt for the British wisdom, manhood and travail to be bestowed on henceforward’. The
great peninsula of Beach and Locach was shown by Mercator as stretching equatorwards from 30°S. to 15°S.,
and it is not without significance that in the draft plan of Drake’s voyage (x) the latitude 30°S. is specifically
mentioned as an objective.
The fresh determination of longitude was of course to be made by dead reckoning but with the use of a
Table of the length of a degree at each latitude which Dee had provided in the manuscript entitled “Queen
Elizabeth’s Tables Gubernatick” which he had prepared in the previous year ‘invented for the British accom­
plishment of perfect Navigation’. This work was a practical Seaman’s Manual, and it can be inferred from what
the author says that it contained rules for solving the nautical triangle, which are not found elsewhere until
nearly the end of the century. The example worked in the Volume of Great and Rich Discoveries was the distance
between Cape Comfort (at the entry to the White Sea) and Canbalu, given the difference of latitude and the
difference of longitude between them. The coordinates of the city in Cathay were taken from a list by Abulfeda
Ismael printed by Ramusio. It was from this author (or rather Postellus’ summary of his Geography) that
Dee quoted the words ‘worthy to be written in letters of gold*, which described the coast of Asia as running
north-west all the way to Russia, so that the most northerly point to be rounded was the familiar North Cape
of Norway.
For sailors it was only necessary to know the difference of longitudes between two places, so that Dec
advised that to eliminate the errors arising from the use of diverse and ill-defined prime meridians they should
all be compared with the meridian running through St. John’s Island (White Sea) and Tanais (at the mouth of
the Don), which was drawn, and in fact fairly correctly drawn, on Mercators’ Map of Europe. The equinoctial
or ‘great’ degree of longitude Dee took, as was the English custom as 60 miles, a figure equivalent to the
15 German miles determined by the German astronomers from their itineraries in the late 15th Century.
Dee had little difficulty in disposing of the stories of inter-continental linkages in high latitudes. He frequently
referred to the experiences of ‘my friend Stephen Borough’ and ‘my dearly beloved Richard Chancellor’, the
latter dead these twenty years and his son Nicholas now with Frobisher. It is indeed clear that he had had many
and searching conversations with these and other returned sailors on climate and ice conditions and felt
certain that there could be no land mass north of Moscovy. He was therefore contemptuous of Scaliger’s
ipse dixit (‘and this ipse is but Scaliger*) that the opposite shore of a gulf was not far away, and that north winds
constantly blew, driving ice southwards. ‘By our yearly trade with S. Nicholas or the Muscovy Bay, the fear
or doubt of wanting apt winds to coast the Scythian shores is a great deal the less; but also by reason of our
farther discoveries to the Isles of Colguyev and Vaigach and then to Nova Zembla are treacle to our hearts
in respect of the assertion of the opinionativc terror of wanting apt wind, and to be oppressed and letten
[hindered] on the Scythian coasts with northern winds only blowing*. And elsewhere he tells the reader ‘You
will take up your hands and bless you to see the monstrous mis-shaping and misplacing of the north-east
borders of Asia hitherto by the best Geographers to be published*. It was indeed his great desire to see a
reformed map, which would be ‘of incredible profit to the British Monarchy and the commendable renown
thereof as long as the world shall stand’. But Arctic exploration was the jealously guarded privilege of the
Moscovy Company. Drake set out that autumn for Magellan Strait, nor did he search for Beach, since his ship
was already crammed with Spanish treasure when he reached the Moluccas. John Dee’s map and instructions
for the ‘bout-sailing’ of Asia were handed to Pet and Jackman in 1580. These two experienced sea-masters
got no farther than the Kara Sea, where in the month of August they found ‘infinite ice’ to the north and
east of them. It is marked on the little sketch-map given to Dee and now preserved in Cotton MS. Otho E.
VIII. The search for a north-cast passage was abandoned, and Dec turned his attention to Atlantis. In 1581
he wrote a new volume in four books, the first addressed to The Queen, the second to the Privy Council,
the third to Philip of Spain, and the fourth to the Pope. Its subject was the evangelizing of the native peoples
of Atlantis, but like Dee’s Sea Manual it has not survived.

C) Geographical Journal, Vol. 75, 1930, 46.

105
 Even of his Volume of Great and Rich Discoveries we have only fragments. Not only was it among the Cotton
manuscripts damaged by fire, but at a much earlier date it had been lent to Richard Hakluyt, who kept the first
long chapter on the voyage to Ophir so that this subsequently passed to Samuel Purchas and was lost. The last
pages contain a long letter from Mercator which Dee transcribed, and which will be the subject of a later
article. Meanwhile there arc some puzzling statements in the manuscript itself which have not been resolved.
‘Sir John di Barros (says Dec) had his cosmographical description of (liina printed there’, and on the following
page he refers to this as the geographical plat, i.e. map, printed in China. There is a reference, too, to a ‘Portu­
gal chart’ with which a report of de Barros docs not agree, and to a ‘chart of M. Paulus’ from which an in­
ference is drawn. The manuscript (’) containing ‘St. Jerome’s’ Latin version of Ethicus Hister’s Cosmography
was given to Dee by the Dean of Winchester, Dr. Beddar, in 1565, and to give the reader ‘a better understand­
ing and more easy belief of Ethicus his records’, Dec quotes ‘St. Jerome’ as saying that Ethicus had ‘a very
strange invention of a kind of shipping or engine to go under the water withall, and so to work mischief at
their pleasure in all seas and seasons apt for navigation’. Would this talk of a submarine indeed help an
Elizabethan to believe in Pheneth and Beath (or Beach) ?

To the Editor of Imago Mundi

Dear Sir,
With reference to my note entitled, A Maratha Map suggests that it was probably prepared by a local Maratha
of North Kanara, published on pages 113-4 of volume IX, official for the use of General Mathews, who led a British
Imago Mundi, 1 have been most fortunate in obtaining the force from Bombay at the end of 1782 for the occupation
comments of Dr. K. N. V. Sastri, recently Professor of of Bcdnorc, or Haidar Nagar, which lies above the Ghats
History', Mysore University. to the south-east (a).
He knows Kanara and the Maratha language well, and This military operation took place just after the death
has special knowledge of the area covered by the map. He of Haidar Ali in December 1782, and an account of it will
says that it gives full and useful information about the be found in the Gazetteer of Kanara District (s), Bombay,
towns and villages—forest and cultivation—mountain pas­ which mentions several of the places named in the map
ses, ferries, and other communications—and gives special and tells how Mathews sailed up the Aghanashini River and
emphasis to important forts. captured Mirjan, which lies on the south border of the
After noting that the draughtsman had little sense of map, whilst various detachments occupied other points
scale, and that his delineation of geographical features to the north.
such as hills and rivers is extremely poor, he points out We may safely accept Dr. Sastri’s view that the map was
that the map show's no part of North Kanara south of the prepared to assist Mathews in his advance from the sea­
Aghanashini River, nor eastward above the hills, or coast through the jungles and hills of the only part of
Ghats. It shows no political boundaries or names, and North Kanara that was likely to be friendly, and where
would be of little value to a civil officer holding charge of labour and supplies would be readily available.
North Kanara, and looking for information of adminis­ The two penultimate paragraphs of my note on p. 114
trative value. of your vol. IX may therefore be struck out, and the sub­
It would have been practically valueless to Thomas stance of this letter substituted.
Munro, who took charge of that district after the death of I am, Sir, yours truly
Tipu in 1799. Colonel R. H. Phillimorc
Dr. Sastri points out, however, that the information C/o Survey of India
given in this map would have been most valuable for the Dehra Dun U.P.
“logistic” arrangements of a military commander, and INDIA

(x) Cotton MSS. Vespasian B. X.

(a) Phillimore, Historical Records of the Survey of India, 1, p. 126.
(*) Vol. XV, ii. Gazetteer, Bombay Presidency, pub. Bombay, 1883; Index p. 362, sn. Mathews.

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