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Dear Maphisters:
(1) the Grand Lama of Tibet (?) :
In d'Anville's "Nouvel Atlas de la Chine" of 1737 appeared the "Carte
Generale du Thibet ou Bout-Tan et des pays de Kashgar et Hami". In the top of this map's cartouche a portrait appears of an unidentified man, dressed in what appears to be a robe. He might very well be the Grand Lama of Tibet; or one of the Jesuit priests who supplied the basic data for the map; or...??? I have found no reference to this portrait on the map, or in the atlas itself, or in its accompanying four text-volumes : the "Description géographique, historique, chronologique, politique, et physique de l'empire la Chine et de la Tartarie chinoise" by J.B. Du Halde. Does anybody know for sure who this is ?
(2) Chinese (?) wind-wagons:
On various 16th and 17th c. maps of China, (beginning with Ortelius' 1584 map of China by the Jesuit Luiz Jorge de Barbuda / Ludovicius Georgius), "wind- / sail-wagons" appear : was the concept of these wagons part of the stock of technical gadgets (clocks, steam-engines etc. ) that the Jesuits brought with them to China, to impress the inhabitants into conversion ; or was it the other way around ?
I have checked the verso-texts of the Ortelius and Hondius maps of China, without result. van Linschoten in his Itinerario mentions the wind-wagons in China ; but this in the 1590's, well after the first edition of the Ortelius map.
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