Lost Islands : The Story of Islands That Have Vanished from Nautical Charts

Description

hardcover light gray cloth, spine gilt stamped. xxi, 146pp. , dust-jacket, ISBN: 0-7748-0210-3. 1st edition. From the Dust Jacket: “[During the 19th century and well into the 20th], nautical charts and general atlases showed many islands which today are known not to have existed… Stommel describes how these little pin-pricks of land got on to the charts, who ‘discovered’ them, who expunged them, and why some were so long-lived. It is a chronicle of poor navigation, misprints, falsifications, optical illusions, wild whalers’ tales, wistful hopes, and a few real islands which rose and fell beneath the waves.” In the rear pocket: a huge foldout reproduction of an 1817 Admiralty chart of the Indian Ocean where most of the islands mentioned in the text are located, and the 1859 map of the Pacific Ocean on verso. The chart measures ca. 66 x 168 cm ( 26″ x 46″ ) when unfolded. The text is illustrated with 11 portraits and old prints plus 23 additional maps (4 double-page).