Welsh Journals

might be expected. But the Benefit of good Water is most remarkably evident in the long lives of that Nation. They were not the tenth part of the first Settlers under Mr. Penn, and yet there are more old people of them now left than of all the other Adventurers. They are generally furnish'd with good Houses and Meadow Ground, and they are far better (Economists in their Families than the Dutch. Their Cloath- ing is good, clean and neat, and near all of their own making, whence they live com- fortably without any splendid or bustling Appearance, while the Germans with far more plentifull Crops, consume great part in foreign Manufactures, to the great enrich- ing their Countrymen, who keep Shop and Tavern together in Town, and most of the Welch being Quakers, a Religion remarkably turn'd for the Improvement of (Economy and Peace, and suiting well with their constant Attachment to Agriculture, they do not bustle, trade and shift their Habitations and Business like the other Inhabitants, but persevere in their Happiness.' H. N. JERMAN. A CHART OF THE NORTH AMERICAN COAST IN 1592. Included in the collection of maps in the National Library of Wales is a portolano or manuscript sea-chart of the North Atlantic Ocean and its coasts. According to the legend on it, the chart was made at Seville in 1592 by a certain Don Domingo. It is drawn on a sheet of parchment which originally must have measured about 2 ft. 6 ins. by 3 ft. 9 ins. and is a typical late-sixteenth century specimen of its kind-one of the scores of slavish and conventional manuscript copies which were produced to order in the ports of southern Spain and elsewhere. The portolano is executed in the usual bright colours with characteristically good draughtsmanship points on the coasts are labelled in the normal black or red lettering according to their reputed importance to mariners inland there is no detail whatsoever there is a scale of degrees as well as of distances there is the loxodrome network and there are ornate compass-roses-all of them features common to the sea-charts of this period. None the less, in spite of a general conformity to type, and in spite, too, of the number that was produced, the ravages of the three or four centuries since portolanos were superseded by printed sailing-charts have so depleted these manuscript charts that any individual example now has an intrinsic scarcity value. The portolano was received in the National Library only just in time. It was recognised by the late Librarian, Sir John Ballinger, among some mouldering papers in a cellar at Peniarth in the county of Merioneth, and though very badly affected by damp and decay, it was carefully and patiently repaired and backed in the Library's bindery. The white spots which appear in the reproduction on Plate XIV occur where the original parchment has rotted away completely and the backing material shows through. Its previous history can only be guessed at, but, since the chart was found at Peniarth, it is possible that it had come into the possession of the celebrated Sir Kenelm Digby (1603- 65), because there are among the Peniarth manuscripts a number of volumes which bear direct evidence that they were in the latter's possession As it has been found impracticable to reproduce successfully the whole of the portolano, that part which shows the coasts of North America has been selected as being particularly suitable for reproduction in this number of the Journal. H. N. Jerman. I Journal, I, p. 89 see also the genealogical table on p. 21.