Pepys Island as a Pacific Stepping Stone: The Struggle to Capture Islands on Early Modern Maps (2018)
Parker, Katherine (Author)
British Journal for the History of Science
Volume: 51
Issue: 4
Pages: 659-677
This paper will investigate how geographic features were recorded on maps in the eighteenth century in order to outline the construction of geographic knowledge by British mapmakers. Due to practical and economic factors, early modern cartography was a conservative practice based on source compilation and comparison. For the Pacific region especially, the paucity of first-hand observations and the conflicting nature of those observations rendered the world's largest ocean difficult to chart and prone to the retention of mythical continents, passages and islands. After a discussion of the practical and economic reasons why geographic features were difficult to revise on maps, the article focuses on a case study to show how geographic enigmas could be placed and persist. It will use Pepys Island to illustrate the ways in which a chimeric feature could become instilled in geographic parlance.
...MoreArticle Sebestian Kroupa; Stephanie J. Mawson; Dorit Brixius (2018) Science and Islands in Indo-Pacific Worlds. British Journal for the History of Science (pp. 541-558).
Similar Citations
Thesis
Sills, Adam Gregory;
(2001)
Against the Map: Heterotopia and the Politics of Geography in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Britain
(/isis/citation/CBB001562382/)
Article
John E. Crowley;
(2016)
Herman Moll’s The World Described (1720): Mapping Britain’s Global and Imperial Interests
(/isis/citation/CBB840276759/)
Book
Adrian S. Wisnicki;
(2019)
Fieldwork of Empire, 1840-1900: Intercultural Dynamics in the Production of British Expeditionary Literature
(/isis/citation/CBB998942839/)
Book
Daniel Foliard;
(2017)
Dislocating the Orient: British Maps and the Making of the Middle East, 1854-1921
(/isis/citation/CBB192403503/)
Book
Westrem, Scott D.;
(2001)
The Hereford Map: A Transcription and Translation of the Legends with Commentary
(/isis/citation/CBB000102416/)
Book
Kline, Naomi Reed;
(2001)
Maps of Medieval Thought: The Hereford Paradigm
(/isis/citation/CBB000101595/)
Book
Nicolas Verdier;
(2015)
La carte avant les cartographes: l'avènement du régime cartographique en france au XVIIIe siècle
(/isis/citation/CBB576438543/)
Chapter
Bendall, Sarah;
(2003)
Mapping and Displaying an English Marshland Landscape in the Mid-Eighteenth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB000670929/)
Article
Sergio Mejía;
(2016)
Plan geográphico del Virreinato de Santafé de Bogotá, 1772
(/isis/citation/CBB152415044/)
Book
Jacques Pennier;
Maria Carme Montaner;
(2017)
Recueil des plans du Roussillon, de Catalogne, des chasteaux, villages, eglises, chapelles & maisons qui peuvent servir de postes en temps de guerre: et de quelques endroits de France et d'Espagne
(/isis/citation/CBB300445319/)
Article
Marco Cavarzere;
(2016)
Land and Nation: The Ancient Modernity of National Geography (Piedmont, 1750–1800)
(/isis/citation/CBB255950712/)
Book
Eckhard Jäger;
(2014)
Die Insel Rügen auf alten Karten: Vier Jahrhunderte Kartografiegeschichte
(/isis/citation/CBB375834622/)
Book
Danson, Edwin;
(2006)
Weighing the World: The Quest to Measure the Earth
(/isis/citation/CBB000671439/)
Book
Brückner, Martin;
(2006)
The Geographic Revolution in Early America: Maps, Literacy, and National Identity
(/isis/citation/CBB000651412/)
Article
Christoph, Andreas;
(2009/2010)
Zur Globenvielfalt aus Weimar. Ausgewählte Produktionen des “Landes-Industrie-Comptoirs” und des “Geographischen Instituts”
(/isis/citation/CBB001024595/)
Chapter
Luís Tirapicos;
(2021)
Da diplomacia à Companhia de Jesus: redes de conhecimento no reinado de D. João V
(/isis/citation/CBB669191240/)
Book
Wooldridge, William C.;
(2012)
Mapping Virginia: From the Age of Exploration to the Civil War
(/isis/citation/CBB001200638/)
Book
Inglis, Robin;
(2008)
Historical Dictionary of the Discovery and Exploration of the Northwest Coast of America
(/isis/citation/CBB001033370/)
Book
Huigen, Siegfried;
(2009)
Knowledge and Colonialism: Eighteenth-Century Travellers in South Africa
(/isis/citation/CBB001023023/)
Book
Primož Gašperič;
Renata Šolar;
Matija Zorn;
(2020)
Kartografski zakladi slovenskega ozemlja / Cartographic Treasures Of Slovenian Territory
(/isis/citation/CBB593817982/)
Be the first to comment!