I’m fortunate to own a ships chart of “The Sea Of the English Empire” originally published in 1684 on a Guttenburg type press. It covers the East Coast from Merrimack River, now in Southern New Hampshire, to the south of the James River in northern Virginia.
Actually, my map is dated 1690, as the author modified the copper plate original to include Philadelphia, incorporated in 1687, and to show boundaries of “East New Iersay”, from “West New Iersay.”
Interestingly, the entrance to New York harbor was almost totally blocked by sand bars two to six feet under the surface. The only entry was to hug the New Jersey shoreline south of Sandy Hook and work your way north.
The chart also shows the fort at the lower end of Manhatten Island, where one of the old wooden walls is now “Wall Street”.
Anyway, the chart shows a scale of latitude (north/south), yet because an accurate sea-going clock (chronometer) had not yet been developed, the chart omits any longitude (east/west) references.
To the point of celestial navigation, I’ve plotted the GPS coordinates from a spot in Virginia and to Boston and overlayed it on my 1690 chart. Interpolating the scale (accounting for the differential in scale of latitude, I find my celestial bearings, coupled with dead reckoning chart to be accurate to GPS: nine miles east to west; eleven miles north to south.
I Find That Incredible Accuracy for over four century’s ago!
I certainly hope the Services continue to teach technologies proven over centuries!
(And, Common Core tells students to use a calculator to solve a division problem? We’re screwed!)
That sounds like a really cool map.
you should post photos!
If you actually own a physical map that was drawn up in 1690, I hope you have it insured, and keep it a secret. If it is a copy, there is still much intrinsic value, in admiring the Olde World methods of display and printing.
You are one who can appreciate the sublime perfection of that navigation method. I’ll bet you there are young men even in today’s Pokemon World who enjoy history, and would get a kick out of hearing you explain the way it has worked for so many hundreds of years.