In the wide open spot, for instance, connected on the south with vast continents and terminating in a point, it would be no easy matter to recognize the reversed image of the _Indian Peninsula_, the _Bay of Bengal_, and _Cochin China_.
Naturally, therefore, these names were nearly all soon dropped; but another system of nomenclature, proposed by an astronomer better acquainted with the human heart, met with a success that has lasted to the present day.
This was Father Riccioli, a Jesuit, and (1598-1671) a contemporary of Hevelius.

In his _Astronomia Reformata_, (1665), he published a rough and incorrect map of the Moon, compiled from observations made by Grimaldi of Ferrara; but in designating the mountains, he named them after eminent astronomers, and this idea of his has been carefully carried out by map makers of later times.
A third map of the Moon was published at Rome in 1666 by Dominico Cassini of Nice (1625-1712), the famous discoverer of Saturn's satellites.

Though somewhat incorrect regarding measurements, it was superior to Riccioli's in execution, and for a long time it was considered a standard work.

Copies of this map are still to be found, but Cassini's original copper-plate, preserved for a long time at the _Imprimerie Royale_ in Paris, was at last sold to a brazier, by no less a personage than the Director of the establishment himself, who, according to Arago, wanted to get rid of what he considered useless lumber! La Hire (1640-1718), professor of astronomy in the _College de France_, and an accomplished draughtsman, drew a map of the Moon which was thirteen feet in diameter.

This map could be seen long afterwards in the library of St.Genevieve, Paris, but it was never engraved.
About 1760, Mayer, a famous German astronomer and the director of the observatory of Goettingen, began the publication of a magnificent map of the Moon, drawn after lunar measurements all rigorously verified by himself.