Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
America. European historians usually credit the first Mercator projec-
tions to the Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator, who lived and
flourished during the sixteenth century. But manuscript Mercator pro-
jection star maps go back to the tenth century in China, and in the late
eleventh century Su Song published Mercator-style maps in one of his
many technical topics.
The world's first inoculation against smallpox probably occurred in
China during Northern Song times; by sixteenth-century Ming times,
it was widely practiced. The Chinese even made the world's first
phosphorescent paintings in Northern Song times, centuries before
phosphorescent substances were first introduced in the West during
the eighteenth century.
