This 1666 map by Dutch cartographer Peter Goos is one of McLaughlin's favorites. "It's a beautiful map," he said.

Before it was depicted as an island, California was depicted as a peninsula, as in this 1548 map from Italy.

This 1625 map by English mapmaker Henry Briggs refers to "the large and goodly island of California" and was influential in spreading that geographical misconception.

The flat northern coast of California and many place names in this 1626 map appear to be borrowed from Briggs' 1625 map.

An English map from 1646.

The northern coast of California has more indentations in this map from around 1657.

Even celestial maps, like this one from 1660, showed California as an island.

A detail from another celestial map from 1660 shows California as an island in the globe to the right.

It wasn't just Europeans who thought California was an island, as this map originally published in Peking in 1674 shows.

Venetian cartographer Vincenzo Coronelli made beautiful, if inaccurate maps. In addition to depicting California as an island in this 1691 map, he shows the Mississippi River entering the Gulf of Mexico near modern day Houston and a large (nonexistent) lake in what's now northern Georgia.

Detail from a French map published in the late 1600s.

A 1730 French map still shows California as an island.

A page from an English atlas published in 1741.

Jesuit priest Eusebius Kino drew a more accurate geography in this 1762 map. But the myth of California lived on for another century or more.

This map from 1770 shows California as it was depicted at different times. Panel "II" shows it as an island.

A Japanese map published in 1796.

This map from an English encyclopedia shows California as an island in 1807.

One of the most recent maps in the McLaughlin collection, this Japanese map was made in 1865.