# Cook's last chart....



## Cisco (Jan 29, 2007)

Some weeks ago there was a thread about charts and J. Cook's work got a mention.... maybe a moderator can find it ( I can't  ) and append this to it...

Anyways this being a grey wet and miserable day I decided to go and find my copy of NZ7612 ,'Dusky and Breaksea Sounds', cancelled in the early 2000's as I recall.... Reason I went out and bought it was that it was the very last piece of Cook's original work still on a chart.

A plan on the lower margin is "Pickersgill Harbour, from Captn Cook's Voyage, 1773", next to it is "Anchor Island Harbour, from Vancouvers Voyage, 1791".

A little bit of history.....


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## James_C (Feb 17, 2005)

Thanks for posting these, I had wondered when the last of Cook's charts was replaced.


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## NZSCOTTY (May 20, 2006)

Out of interest the new chart still has Cooks "pickersgill harbour" shown on it to show the close similarity to the latest survey.


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## Pat McCardle (Jun 12, 2005)

I have not seen any evidence but I believe you could put Cook's survey map of the St.Lawrence River over a satellite picture & all matches perfectly? An outstanding piece of surveying at that time by JC & All his men!


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## joebuckham (Apr 1, 2005)

just a little off thread but struck me as funny when i first saw it.

on a chart of the indian and southern oceans, just a couple of hunded miles or so south of the cape of good hope was the inscription "iceberg sighted here 1883" or similar, to which some wag had added "probably melted by now"(Thumb)


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## Cisco (Jan 29, 2007)

The one showing the west coast of africa, possibly 4209 Freetown to Luanda , had a 'settlement for freed slaves' marked somewhere in the interior.... always annotated with 'rest camp for U-C officers'


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## Andrew Craig-Bennett (Mar 13, 2007)

Meandering gently off the track, I am pretty sure that the chart of Sorgfjord in NE Spitsbergen that we used in 1974 was surveyed by Parry in the 1820's.


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## david_crosby (Oct 1, 2009)

Andrew Craig-Bennett said:


> Meandering gently off the track, I am pretty sure that the chart of Sorgfjord in NE Spitsbergen that we used in 1974 was surveyed by Parry in the 1820's.


I recall that in CNCo's "S" boats around Papua, New Guinea, New Britain, New Ireland in the 60's etc most of the charts carried the annotation "based on survey of xxx 1802". Even the Coral Sea charts still showed where stores for shipwrecked mariners were with the note "they should not be ruthlessly exploited by guano seekers".

Made the chart a fascinating read.


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## Cisco (Jan 29, 2007)

The warning for shipwrecked sailors in an Admiralty publication whose title escapes me... 'don't sleep under the coconut palms...'

The 'imperial' chart of the Gulf of Carpentaria said the survey was down the Matthew Flinders. When it went metric it said ' from the latest information to hand' or words to that effect... it was the same chart... different colour was all......
That was before the decided to put the little survey box on the metric charts showing what had been surveyed, when and how......


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## Andrew Craig-Bennett (Mar 13, 2007)

Arctic Pilot still warns you not to eat polar bear liver, or you will die of excess Vitamin A. I must say I had the impression that CNCo navigated, and indeed navigates, around Papua New Guinea New Britain and New Ireland on tram lines contained in seven big fat files (seven in my day, probably nine by now)


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## Duncan112 (Dec 28, 2006)

Always found it fascinating as an engineer to watch the Master in both Bank Line and CNCo con the ship through the China Straits - usually from memory and personal turning markers.

Slightly off subject but does anyone know where I might get a copy of the old chart of Socotra - with the original survey comments and explorers tracks. From memory it was chart 7? An especially fine example of hachuring.


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## Andrew Craig-Bennett (Mar 13, 2007)

I seem to recal that there was a rather splendid moment when High and Dry decided to try their hand as interlopers in CNCo's territory and their ship piled up rather magnificently in a strait that we used but nobody else did. 

I remember that chart!

Funnily enough, I think - and I may well be wrong, that when I once paid a visit to Darkest Taunton it was one of a handful of charts that the Hydrographic Office were selling as "replicas". It could be worth dropping them a line via your friendly neighbourhood chart agent.


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