Jeffrey C. Stone

The cartographic signs and content of Blaeu's maps of Scotland

Abstract This paper examines the meanings, consistency and comprehensiveness of the symbols used on the Blaeu maps of Scotland. Through comparing Blaeu printed maps with original Pont manuscript maps of the same area, Blaeus use of cartographic signs is assessed. Blaeus engravers were generally meticulous copyists, but the maps display the characteristic inconsistency of 17th century map‐making. Selected evidence, particularly for Skye, also shows that the maps were not comprehensive in depicting topographic features.

Timothy Pont and the first topographic survey of Scotland c.1583‐1596: an informative contemporary manuscript

Abstract A little known Pont manuscript provides evidence of Pont preparing for the publication of his maps. It also provides the only known key to his cartographic symbols, suggests a connection with Camden and adds to the list of extant manuscript maps by Pont with coverage of South Uist and Linlithgow.

Nimmo's Inverness Survey & Journal 1806. Edited by Noël P. Wilkins

Washington Atlas’, is now at Yale University. The maps are thought to have once been part of Washington’s own library and passed down through family members until eventually donated to Yale. It is unclear if the maps formed an atlas at the time Washington owned them or were acquired as loose sheets over a long period of time and only bound later. Regardless of the exact method of acquisition or arrangement of the material when in Washington’s hands, themaps are nowpreserved together. The historical narrative in Schecter’s George Washington’s America begins with a young George Washington and continues until his death in 1799, but the work focuses almost exclusively on his military campaigns. Additionally, the maps are primarily used as illustrations to denote the locations of campsites, battles, retreats, victories and other important events. One example of the way Schecter uses maps in conjunction with his text is William McMurray’s 1783 Map of the United States of America. This map serves first to illustrate text describing tensions between Spanish and United States representatives in Natchez, Mississippi, but two pages later, the same map is used to illustrate the location of 30,000 acres of landWashington owned along the Ohio River near Point Pleasant, West Virginia. The author makes no mention of the fact that Washington and William Crawford, Washington’s land agent, personally prepared a map in October 1774 of the same 30,000 acres of land that Washington and other members of the Virginia Regiment claimed along the Great Kanahwa River; the Washington and Crawford map is now preserved in the Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division. In sum, this is an interesting addition to existing Washington scholarship, particularly since it uses maps to interweave the sometimes complicated history of events in Revolutionary America. Unfortunately, however, the author has missed an excellent opportunity to assay Washington’s grasp of geography and its interplay with historical events. An analysis of manuscript maps prepared by Washington, for example, in addition to the commercially available printed maps that comprise the collection of maps at Yale and are the subject of this book, would have dramatically increased the historical significance of the work.