Gerardus Mercator was born Gerhard Kremer of German parents in the town of Rapelmonde near Antwerp on March 5, 1512. He was educated at 'sHertogenbosch in the Netherlands (Englehart, 1959). Like many other intellectuals of his time, very early in his life he Latinized his German name, which meant 'merchant,' and changed it to the name by which we know him. Mercator means 'world trader' (Groliers, 1997). He changed his name upon entering the University of Louvain in 1530 where he studied the humanities and philosophy. He graduated from Louvain with an M.A. in 1532 (Browne, 1963).

A new visual world was opening like a flower around Mercator. Ships came back from the Americas with stories and drawings of a wondrous new land. All that information fed the Renaissance belief that you learn by looking closely and critically at the external world. In a hundred years that new visual sense would give birth to modern experimental science.

For a navigator, then, a straight line plotted from point A to point B on the chart would represent a rhumb line. A rhumb crosses all meridians at a constant azimuth allowing the navigator to set a compass orientation and proceed forthright. On The Mercator Chart a rhumb is always a straight line, whereas the corresponding great circle is a curved line (unlike the Gnomonic where the converse is true). Tissot's Indicatrix indicates numerically the property of conformality. Thus it is that the Mercator Chart is not a good map for global viewing (a better one for viewing might be Gall's) but excellent for navigation.

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gan to have worries on how to reconcile the account of the origin of the universe given in the Bible with that given by Arestotle. He traveled to a number of places, including Antwerp and Mechelen, while going through this personal crisis. His travels did little for his religious worries but gave him a deep interest in geography.

He was also hip deep in reformation theology. When authorities rounded up suspected Lutherans, they took in Mercator. The ones who recanted were to be mercifully beheaded or maybe buried alive. The rest were to be burned at the stake. Mercator was charged with heresy in 1544 (Englehart, 1959). This was partly due to his Protestant beliefs, partly due to the fact that he traveled so widely to acquire data for his maps that suspicions were aroused. He spent seven months in prison. He was released, mainly due to strong support from the University of Louvain and Mercator's parish priest who interceded to save his life. After that Mercator shut up about

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