Local News in Brief : Fullerton : British Cartographer to Open Rare Map Exhibit

A cartographer who recently retired as head of the British Museum’s map library will speak Thursday to highlight the opening of an exhibit of rare maps at Cal State Fullerton.

Dr. Helen Wallis will discuss “A Cartographic Enigma: Java la Grande and Terra Australis” at 4 p.m. in Room 123 of the Humanities Building.

Wallis, currently visiting professor of geography at UCLA, will also show slides of early maps depicting geographical fantasies of the Southern Hemisphere.

The month-long exhibition, titled “Worlds That Never Were,” features 24 maps dating from 1513 to 1676. “These superb examples of early cartography portray a world only half known, and therefore half invented, in the age of discovery,” said Albert R. Vogeler, the exhibit’s curator.