The following site illustrates the basic idea of Mercator’s map, and gives a picture and short biography of Mercator:

       http://www.dynagen.co.za/eugene/where/chart.html

This one is worth a look too::

       http://www.cnr.colostate.edu/class_info/nr502/lg2/projection_descriptions/mercator.html

And this one is a bit quirky:

       http://www.diversophy.com/maps/whatsupsouth.pdf