Hydrophylacium Africae Precipum, in Montibus Lunae Situm, Lacus et Flumina Precipua Sundens ubi et nova invento..

Early map of Africa extending from the Congo south to the Cape of Good Hope and including the Island of Madagascar. The map is based on an account; ‘the fountains of Abyssinia’ from a journal left by Peter Paez.

On the 21st April in the year 1618, being there with the King and his army, I ascended the place and observed everything with great attention: I discovered first two round fountain each bout four palms in diameter, and saw with the greatest delight what neither Cyrus, the King of the Persians, or Cambysis, nor Alexander the Great, nor the famous Julius Caesar could ever discover. The two openings of these fountains have no issue in the plain on top of the mountain but flow from the root of it. The second fountain lies about a stone-cast west from the first: the inhabitants say that this whole mountain is full of water and add that the whole plain about the fountain is floating and unsteady, a certain mark that there is water concealed under it.

Kircher’s description of the cavern is clearly shown above and it is named on the map as, ‘Hydrophylacium Africae precipuum in Montibus Lunae’. He also includes the river, ‘Rio del Spirito Santo’, coursing parallel to the lower border of the cavern and entering the sea to place referred to as a place of gold.

Kircher’s maps were among the first thematic maps to attempt to scientifically illustrate and explain global geological and oceanographic phenomena.