John Thornton and William Fisher (1 results)

Describing West-India Navigation, from Hudson's-Bay to River Amazones. the whole being very much enlarged and Corrected, with additions of several New Charts and Charts, not before published.Verner's 7th edition of the 4th Book. Part 1 with 23 engraved charts double page except 4 which are folding with in addition 2 engraved charts in the text. The Fourth Book with 21 engraved charts, of which 7 are folding, 10 double page & 4 single sheet, with in addition 4 engraved charts in the text. The whole of both works further illustrated throughout the text, with numerous woodcut coastal profiles and small anchorage charts. Folio. Early boards retaining remnants of seventeenth century panelled calf, early paper repair to edges and back, housed in a modern drop back half morocco box.[Both parts] London, R & W Mount and T. Page, The Fourth Book of the English Pilot was a work intended for practical navigators, and as such its contents were under continual review with charts added and discarded when improved hydrographical information became available, thus the contents vary from edition to edition. Though many copies must have been in circulation the punishing environment in which it was used has led to few examples surviving. This is particularly so with the above edition of which we can find only one other copy (Library of Congress). Evidence that this copy belonged to a navigator is supplied by two contemporary ms. leaves one titled ?A table of the North Stars Declination . calculated in the year 1720? and another small chart ?The Virgins Rocks on the Bank Newfoundland East of Cape Raze 85 miles?, a dangerous underwater feature in a great cod-fishing area on the Grand Banks. The 1721 edition has only one chart not found in earlier versions, (though related to a much earlier survey), this is Cyprian Southi[a]cke's ?The Harbour at Casco Bay? Relatively new charts include: the anonymous ?A new Survey of the harbour of Boston in New England? dating from c.1706; Edmund Halley's New and Correct Chart, our example is the first published issue is extremely fine and has, as required, the two appended thin sheets of letterpress explanatory text. This first appeared in the pilot in 1707; John Gaudy's ?A chart Shewing the Sea Coast of Newfoundland from the Bay of Bulls, 1715; Moll's A New General Chart of the West Indies; M&P's. ?A General chart of the Western Ocean? first issued with the pilot c.1716 or here in 1721. The final two charts both appear after 1713 and may too have been included in the 1716 edition or alternatively are issued here first. They are the Anon. ?Draught of the Coast of Guiana from the River Orinoco? and ?A new and Correct large draught of the Tradeing part of the West Indies? The Thornton Chart (Burden 667) ?Virginia Maryland Pensilvania? is in Verner's fourth state. Most of the remaining charts conform to the originals found in the earliest Seller/Thornton edition of 1689. These include Burden's: 622, 528, 529, 661, 662, 663, 664, & 749.