A huge number of articles are devoted to Hyperborea (Arctida), and none of them is complete without using the map of Gerhard (or Gerard) Mercator of 1569 depicting this mysterious continent as the most convincing argument in favor of its existence. However, none of the numerous authors tried to analyze what is depicted on this map and is it possible for such a geomorphological object to exist in nature.
Figure: 1. Map of Gerhard Mercator 1569. with the image of Hyperborea. Insets show enlarged images of the mouths of the Hyperborean rivers.
According to the description of supporters of the existence of Hyperborea, it, located in the North Pole, was an archipelago of 4 huge islands separated from each other by deep rivers (which gave reason to consider it a mainland)
Let's take a close look at the Mercator map. On the outside, the continent, about 1200 km in diameter, is surrounded by a mountain range that exactly repeats its contours. In the very center of the mainland, exactly at the North Pole (!), There is a mountain, which many researchers identify with the legendary Mount Meru. Around it there is a diamond-shaped inner sea basin with a diameter of about 300 - 400 km. 4 rivers flow out of this inland sea at an angle of about 90 ° to each other, oriented approximately along the parts of the world - to the north, east, south and west.
Before entering the ocean (“Mare glaciale” - Glacial Sea), these rivers cut through the mountainous environment of the mainland and form distinct deltaic estuaries (insets a, b, c in Fig. 1). Moreover, the northernmost of them (inset a) is very similar to the Nile Delta and has the same triangular shape. The presence of deltas indicates that the author of the map assumed a higher hypsometric position of the inland water body in comparison with the estuarine parts of rivers, which ensured the flow of river waters into the ocean.
What should have alerted researchers, primarily geographers, when studying this map? Can we take on faith its reliability if it depicts something that does not happen with natural objects on the Earth?
I think that even high school students, not to mention students of geographical faculties, could point out a gross mistake made by the compilers of this map - by G. Mercator himself or his predecessor, from whom he borrowed it: the 4 rivers depicted on the map flow from one indoor pool, and this does not happen in nature! From any lake, ONLY ONE river always flows, and the inland sea is connected to subsequent bodies of water by ONLY ONE, usually narrow, strait.
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The reader can be convinced of this for himself by going over in his memory the lakes and inland seas of our planet known to him. In areas with a hot climate, the reservoir can be closed (for example, the Aral, Caspian inland seas) and the balance between the inflow and outflow of water is carried out due to high evaporation from the surface of the reservoir. But nature does not allow more than one runoff from a reservoir, and this is one of its laws! It is interesting that in many sites on the Internet, in many encyclopedias and Wikipedias, which the author looked through to search for confirmation of this pattern, not a word is said about it.
The presence on the Mercator map of a reservoir with 4 rivers makes us believe that these data are fictional and fantastic. They testify that the compiler of the map did not know about the existence of the marked pattern, just as those who believe the reality of the depicted continent do not know it. The presence of such a fantastic element on the map nullifies all attempts to interpret the cartographic image of Hyperborea Mercator as a source of information about the existence of this continent deserving attention of scientists.
There is another, obviously fantastic, element in the image of Arctida. It is a mountain range on the outer edge of the mainland, which is cut by four rivers. There are no analogues of such a ridge in the relief of large islands, not to mention small continents (Australia, Antarctica). The only thing that at least somehow resembles such a hypsometric distribution of hills and lows on the islands is the atolls. But, is it possible to compare these miniature islands with a large continent, which is Hyperborea on the Mercator map ?! And the corals that form the outer wall of the atolls could not live in the conditions of "Mare glaciale" - they need warm water. No, there can be no analogies here with Mercator's Hyperborea!
Another fantastic element on the map is Mount Meru, which, with the utmost precision, is erected by the compiler directly to the North Pole of the planet and orients the position of the remaining associated relief elements of Hyperborea relative to the pole - the inner sea and the outer contour of the continent. Such an exact match can only indicate that it is of artificial origin and created by the imagination and fantasy of the Great Cartographer.
The complete inconsistency of its structure with modern relief elements on the map of the Arctic Ocean bottom also testifies against the reliability of Hyperborea Mercator. The fact that some parts of this bottom (for example, the Lomonosov Ridge, the region of the New Siberian Islands and Wrangel Island and the entire shelf zone) could in historically recent time (5000-18000 years ago) sink below its present level or were flooded with a global increase sea level is a very realistic scientific assumption. This means that in this area of the ocean, either an archipelago of islands or a large piece of land could previously exist, and hardly anyone can deny this possibility.
Fig. 2. Comparison of the Mercator map with the bathymetric map of the Arctic Ocean. The images are oriented along the Bering Strait in the north-north-eastern part of the maps. On the bathymetric map, the blue color corresponds to the shelf zones, two of which are connected by the Lomonosov Ridge (AB).
But the modern topography of the bottom of the Arctic Ocean should have retained at least some elements of the sunken land, but this is not! The reader can verify this for himself by comparing the two images in Fig. 2.
So, we come to an unambiguous conclusion: the image of Hyperborea is a product of fiction either by Gerhard Mercator himself, or by his predecessor, whose materials were used by the Great Cartographer. We can only try to find out WHAT was the basis for this fiction? It is possible (this is just an assumption!) That Plato's data on Atlantis were such material. First, according to these data, the kingdom of Atlantis was located on an island with the same incredible relief as Hyperborea: its outer part was also surrounded by a ring of mountains, and the inner one was a plain.
Secondly, the Acropolis of the Atlanteans was crossed by 4 radial channels located at an angle of 90 degrees to each other, like the rivers on the Mercator map. It is also possible that the image on the map of 4 rivers is an echo of the Biblical legends about the location of Eden in the area of intersection of the channels of the Tigris, Euphrates, Pison and Gihon. And if the last two rivers could not be identified on the ground for a long time, the appearance of space images helped to solve this problem and determine their position: their mouths were located in the area of the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates.
It is possible that the biblical information prompted the author of the map of Hyperborea to depict exactly 4 rivers. However, the fantastic details of her image look extremely naive and are designed only for the most gullible users.