Jason, though, raised a question that was far more important. “But how did Catherine and Lomonosov discover Hyperborea’s location? And more importantly, how do we follow in their footsteps?”
Gray returned to the desk, where Lomonosov’s labors were suspended in time.
There must be a clue to his methodology here.
He stared across the disheveled spread of papers, journals, and books. He noted two types of brass compasses—the magnetic kind to divine true north and instruments for drawing circles. There was also a tarnished silver sextant, along with a set of metal rulers and protractors.
All tools of cartography.
This realization drew him to a brightly colored map on the table, drawn in pinks, greens, and yellows. Its parchment was more cracked and yellowed than anything else on the desktop, suggesting it was far older.
He shifted toward it, wanting a better look, but a large book was splayed open atop it, obscuring most of the map.
Gray defied his own instructions and reached down and closed the book. He shifted it aside to reveal the full breadth of the chart beneath it.
It was a map he vaguely recognized, one of the foremost examples of early cartography. He had also come across it more recently, from his research on lost continents—for obvious reasons.
Leaning closer, he studied the finely drawn map, which was inscribed with notes and names in Latin. He hovered a finger over the bottom right corner, where a title was written:Septentrionalium Terrarum.
Anna peered over his shoulder, noting where he was pointing, and translated the Latin. “Of the Northern Lands.”
He glanced to her.
“It’s a copy of the Mercator Map,” she said, clearly recognizing it, too. “Considered the oldest chart of the Arctic. Drawn by a Flemish cartographer, Gerardus Mercator, in the sixteenth century.”
Gray nodded. The map was a top-down view of the Arctic centered on the North Pole. He could even appreciate how much of the coastlinesroughly matched existing lands. Except, in the center, surrounding the pole, was drawn a large landmass divided into four parts by rivers.
No wonder this map drew the attention of Lomonosov.
He glanced to Anna and pointed to the map’s center. “Is that supposed to be Hyperborea?”
“Many have believed so. But Mercator never claimed as such. In fact, he was a meticulous cartographer, one famous, even today, for his accuracy.”
“Looks like he went way off course with this one.”
“You must understand that he constructed this map based on information gleaned from many sources, mostly charts and accounts from early Arctic explorers. And clearlymuchof what is recorded here is accurate. Most of the coastlines, some of the written notes—not only about the various lands, but also its peoples.” She pointed to the lower right quadrant of the fanciful continent. “Like here.”
“As you can read,” Anna continued, “this states that there arepygmieswho live in this region. Most historians suspect Mercator is misidentifying the short-statured locals. Likely referring to the predecessors of the modern-day Inuit people.”
“So, Mercator mixed truth with fiction. But what about the big landmass in the middle?” Gray circled a finger around the mysterious continent at the center of the map.
Anna studied it with a sigh. “According to Mercator’s description, he states that rising at the North Pole is a huge mountain composed of pure lodestone, some thirty-three miles in diameter. It was where all compasses pointed, drawn by the pull of that magnetic peak. And not just compass needles, it also drew those four rivers toward it.”
“Breaking the continent into its four sections,” Gray noted.
“Correct. And where those rivers all met, at the base of the mountain, they formed a huge whirlpool that would empty into the world below.”
“But there’s nothing like that around the North Pole. For someone so accurate and meticulous as Mercator, how did he get it so wrong?”
“Again, he based his maps on eyewitness accounts from Arctic explorers.”
“Like who?”
She shrugged. “There were many as I recall from my archival studies. For example, there was a pair of sixteenth-century adventurers, Frobisher and Davis, who traveled to northern Canada and reported vicious currents pulling icebergs toward the pole, towed—or so they believed—by those indrawing rivers.”
Gray sighed and shook his head. “I guess this proves you should double-check your sources.”
Anna scowled her disapproval. “Mercatordid. The pair of Canadian adventurers weren’t the only ones to tell this tale. Mercator’s most influential source came from an English friar from Oxford, Nicolas of Lynn, who traveled to Norway in the fourteenth century and then continued farther to the north, sailing deep into the Arctic. He wrote a travelogue of his account, titledInventio Fortunata, which he presented to King Edward III upon his return—along with an additional gift.”
