A Directory for the Navigation of the Indian Ocean, with Descriptions of its Coasts, Islands, etc., from the Cape of Good Hope to the Strait of Sunda and Western Australia, Including also the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf; the Winds, Monsoons and Currents, and the Passages from Europe to its Various Ports. With addenda.

FINDLAY, Alexander George.

Published by London: Richard Holmes Laurie, 1882

About this Item

Fourth edition, expanded issue, with the 169-page addenda for 1897 updating and supplementing the text. Findlay's directory includes significant discussion of the passages and coasts in Arabia and the Gulf, as well as plans of wind systems, the Aden anchorage, and the currents and ice drifts of the Arabian Sea. Chapter XII, "The South Coast of Arabia", describes the present state of Aden, including its economy, telegraph connections, and neighbouring tribes. Precise descriptions of navigational landmarks are accompanied by summaries of ports of call (Muscat: "the heat at this place is intense, being concentrated by the hills like a parabolic mirror" - p. 815). Chapter XIII is devoted to intelligence on the Gulf and references Sharjah, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi. "Our acquaintance with the hydrography of the Persian Gulf is nearly perfect" (p. 822). The climate is described as "one of the most trying imaginable" (p. 824) and a danger to the health of Europeans, and much is made of the region's healthy trade in dates and pearls. Abu Dhabi (Abu Thabi) provides the best pilots, while Bushire boasts yearly exports of over one million pounds. "Between 1869 and 1875 Findlay [1812-1875] prepared and published six navigational directories which in text, maps, and diagrams documented the winds, currents, coastlines, and other information necessary for navigation in the major oceans of the world. The directories ran to several editions and were regarded as the standard authorities" (ODNB). His Indian Ocean directory was first published in 1866. A friend of David Livingstone, Findlay took a keen interest in exploration in Africa, mapping routes taken by Burton and others. Octavo. Folding frontispiece colour map of wind systems in 2 sheets, 16 maps and plans (4 colour, 12 folding). Original blue morocco-grain cloth lettered in gilt and decorated in blind, dark blue surface-paper endpapers, edges speckled dark red. A little worming and marking to cloth, small area of skinning to front endpaper, frontispiece sheets foxed: a very good copy.

Seller Inventory # 171464

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Directory for the Navigation of the Indian Ocean, with Descriptions of its Coasts, Islands, etc., from the Cape of Good Hope to the Strait of Sunda and Western Australia, Including also the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf; the Winds, Monsoons and Currents, and the Passages from Europe to its Various Ports. With addenda.
• Publisher: London: Richard Holmes Laurie, 1882