within the Pollak Library, mermaids swim in gray-blue seas off the coasts of mysterious lands. The breath of giant wind-gods fills the sails of lonely galleons. Tall-masted ships sail on waters riddled with fierce sea serpents, along rocky shores where hungry cannibals live. Huge lakes and rivers that never existed define with precision still other aspects of the lost worlds of cartographic imagination. These are glimpses at a few of the early maps kept safe in the library's Roy V. Boswell Collection for the History of Cartography. Read More

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