COLLINS, Capt. Greenville (1643-1694). Fowey & Mounts Bay... London: William Mount and Thomas Page, 1738.

COLLINS, Capt. Greenville (1643-1694). Fowey & Mounts Bay Is Most Humbly Presented And Dedicates to the Right Reverend Father in God Jonathan Lord Bishop of Bristoll, by Capt. Greenvile Collins, Hydrographr. To the King. London: William Mount and Thomas Page, 1738.

Single sheet (24 x 20 inches, full margins showing the plate mark). Fine engraved map of two important ports in Cornwall, UK, with two insets, and the title within an elaborate cartouche (minor separation along the fold, lightly toned).

THE FIRST HYDROGRAPHIC CHARTS OF GREAT BRITAIN. Originally published in Greenville Collins' "Great Britain's Coasting Pilot Being a New Survey of the Sea Coast". An inset map of Mounts Bay depicts the ports at Mouse Hole, Penzance, and Mount St. Michael, formerly a priory under the abbey of Mont St. Michel across the channel. Below is a coastal profile of the West bank of the mouth of the river Fowey with landmark towns, churches, and castles. The large cartouche dedicates the chart to the Lord Bishop of Bristol, framed by St. Paul and St. Peter and crowned with the Bishop’s arms and mitre. Captain Greenville Collins was appointed to the position of His Majesty’s Hydrographer by Charles II in 1681, and was commanded to “make a survey of the sea coasts of the Kingdom by measuring all the sea coasts with their exact latitudes, the true plots of all harbours, rivers, roads, bays, creeks, islands, soundings, and the setting and flowing of tides’ which he surveyed over the course of seven years and finally published in 1693 (Hyde 2009). Verner, MCS #58, 1969. Robinson p.40-43, 1962. British Library Cartographic Items Maps C.25.b.11. For more information about this map, or a warm welcome to see it and other books in our library at 72nd Street, NYC, please contact Tara Mishkovsky, M.A. in the Rare Book Department. Bookseller Inventory # 72TM006