Marthurin Guitet: 1708-10

Here’s a map I haven’t seen before. It’s a sea chart: Note the detailed drawing of channels through sandbanks, including depth markings; the lack of detail regarding towns ashore; the elevation profiles of the islands lying offshore; and the many compass lines showing sailors which bearings lead where. (Click on the picture above to see a larger version.)

The note at the top explains that it was drawn by Mathurin Guitet (1664/5-1745), a Dutch merchant and hydrographer, and published by Joannes Loots. (This is a facsimile in the collection of the NYPL.)

Here’s what the complete map looks like. It includes Friesland and Gronningen (here lumped together as “Vriesland”), Ostfriesland (“Emderland”) and the foot of the Danish peninsula. (Click on the picture above to see a larger version.)

This is the note that explains what the map is all about. (Click on the picture above to see a larger version.)

Guitet’s depiction of the Ostfrisian peninsula, with lots of navigational tools that would be welcome for a sailor.

Map facsimile accompanied Heft 4 of Nordseeküste, 1961, a publication of the Küstenmuseum Juist in Juist, Germany.

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