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South Pole to give usa modern map selected for alteration, shown better look at it. Or, as in Figure 2, is a two-point equidistant pro- with anomaly number jection which, like Rosselli’s map, has its one, he might have centre situated just under the horn of Africa been working from a (Snyder, p. 235). I redrew Antarctica with- source map which in the gridwork on this map as it would showed Antarctica in appear if rotated 150 degrees to the right. isolation. This rotation orients the Antarctic Now what if, at one Peninsula and the Weddell Sea toward the time, Antarctica really Indian Ocean. I then simply moved this was a couple of thou- projection of Antarctica closer to the tip of sand miles off-canter Southern Africa. from the South Pole, Figure 3 shows a side-by-side compari- and a map existed son of the Africa/Antarctica portion of this showing this orienta- altered map with the Africa/Antarctica por- tion of the isolated con- tion of Rosselli's map. Are these striking tinent in relation to the similarities mere coincidence? South Pole? If a car- tographer incorporated References: such a source into his + Hancock, Graham, Fingerprints of the Gods, own world map, he Crown Publishing, New York, 1995. There are also a couple of anomalies on would end up with a map showing an off- + Shirley, Rodney W., The Mapping of the World: the map. First of all, if the features on centre Antarctica. Early Printed World Maps, 1472-1700, New Rosselli's Antarctica really are the I decided to alter a modern map by rotat- Holland, London, 1993, 3rd ed. Antarctic Peninsula and the Weddell Sea, ing Antarctica and moving it closer to the + Snyder, John P., Flattening the Earth: Two they should be oriented toward the South southern tip of Africa, and then compare Thousand Years of Map Projections, University of Atlantic instead of the Indian Ocean. this altered map with Rosselli’s map. The Chicago Press, Chicago, 1993. Secondly, the continent is off-canter from the . South Pole, looking as if Figure 3 it has been pulled up closer to the southern tip of Africa. One possible explana- tion for the first of these anomalies is that Rosselli might have worked from a source map which showed only Antarctica. When he incorporated this source into his own map, he got the continent turned around because there were no reference points for him to use to align fai Antarctica with the other continents. As for the second anomaly, Rosselli may have simply pulled Antarctica up from the THE PERFECT GIFT FOR SOMEONE WHO HAS EVERYTHING £15.00 for a 1 year (six issues) subscription — Tel: 01342 322854 or Fax: 01342 324574 modern map selected for alteration, shown in Figure 2, is a two-point equidistant pro- jection which, like Rosselli's map, has its centre situated just under the horn of Africa (Snyder, p. 235). I redrew Antarctica with- in the gridwork on this map as it would appear if rotated 150 degrees to the right. This rotation orients the Antarctic Peninsula and the Weddell Sea toward the Indian Ocean. I then simply moved this projection of Antarctica closer to the tip of Southern Africa. Figure 3 shows a side-by-side compari- son of the Africa/Antarctica portion of this altered map with the Africa/Antarctica por- tion of Rosselli's map. Are these striking similarities mere coincidence? References: Figure 3 56 * NEXUS JUNE-JULY 1996