gCaptain

Maritime News

Maritime Monday for October 16th, 2017: Mappaemundi

by

A map of the celestial globe with comet; 1618 – illuminated engraving – British Museum
 

U.S. Coast Guard Northeast News Release: Rhode Island’s tall ship SSV Oliver Hazard Perry loses power, hits multiple boats before grounding in Newport Harbor

Saturday 23rd October 1937 and a Thames Division launch is escorting the Newlyn fishing boat, Rosebud, to a berth at Westminster Pier. The Rosebud had just made a 400-mile voyage from Newlyn in Cornwall carrying nine Newlyn fishermen, a Saffron cake, red satin dancing shoes, and a bottle containing water from the River Jordan. All the items except for the cake were given to the men for luck on their journey to London.

The aim of their journey was to present a petition to the Health Minister, Sir. Kingsley Wood, disputing the decision of the Penzance Council to demolish their homes under a slum clearance scheme. More

Frigate Bird – Voyageurs Anciens et Modernes (1857) more
 
On most counts the U.S. Navy is a deadly serious business with its nuclear submarines, super-carriers, and destroyer mounted rail guns. One of its more whimsical facilities is in landlocked suburban Maryland: a half-mile long indoor swimming pool run by the Naval Surface Warfare Center.

Once every other year since 1989, the David Taylor Model Basin, (normally used to conduct naval architecture tests) plays host to the the International Submarine Races, an educational spectacle geared towards college and high school student who compete (as teams) against one another in the enormous tank. more

Cold War-era postcard of The Naval Ordnance Laboratory (NOL), formerly located in White Oak, Maryland. In 1944, acquisition, planning and construction work began at a 712-acre (2.88 km2) wooded site located at on New Hampshire Avenue, outside the Washington, DC Beltway. It was built to house the newly-merged former U.S. Navy Mine Unit (Washington, DC, Navy Yard) and the Experimental Ammunition Station (Indian Head, Maryland).

Someone remarked to a Navy official during early 1945 that it seemed odd to be building the new laboratory at that time: the war would probably be over before the facility could be finished. “That laboratory” remarked the Navy man, “is not being built for this war”.

Miss Monkey grew up just up the road from this facility. more about the NOL

Boston circa 1900. “Battleship USS Kearsarge (BB-5) from astern.” 8×10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size on SHORPY
Uneeda Bisquit: Circa 1905. “The Basin — Baltimore, Maryland.” Panorama made from three 8×10 inch glass negatives. Detroit Publishing Company. View full size on SHORPY
National Geographic: The hole was discovered by researchers about a month ago. The team, comprised of scientists from the University of Toronto and the Southern Ocean Carbon and Climate Observations and Modeling (SOCCOM) project, was monitoring the area with satellite technology after a similar hole opened last year.

Known as a polynya, this year’s hole was about 30,000 square miles at its largest, making it the biggest polynya observed in Antarctica’s Weddell Sea since the 1970s. Keep Reading

Hole the Size of Maine Opens in Antarctica Ice

These holes in the ice form thanks to Antarctic water circulation, reports Maddie Stone at Earther. Warm water rises toward the surface, melting the ice that sits atop the open ocean waters, creating the polynya “window.” Heat is released from the water through this opening, causing the now cooler water to sink. This circulation pushes more warm water toward the surface, which keeps the polynya open.  More on Smithsonian

 

Almost the entire cohort of chicks from an Adelie penguin colony in the eastern Antarctic was wiped out by starvation last summer in what scientists say is only the second such incident in over 40 years. Researchers said Sunday the mass die-off occurred because unusually large amounts of sea ice forced penguin parents to travel farther in search of food for their young. By the time they returned, only two out of thousands of chicks had survived. more on ABC News
 

Penguin disaster: only two chicks survive from colony of 40,000

The Guardian: The head of polar programs at WWF, Rod Downie, said: “Adélie penguins are one of the hardiest and most amazing animals on our planet. This devastating event contrasts with the image that many people might have of penguins. It’s more like ‘Tarantino does Happy Feet’, with dead penguin chicks strewn across a beach in Adélie Land.  more
 
providencepubliclibrary – Maybe the best document mystery/controversy ever: on October 10, 1965, Yale announced their determination that The Vinland Map was first known map of America, dating it circa 1440. At that time it was thought to confirm Viking exploration of North America.  

The map had first appeared in the 1950s, bound together with two medieval documents (the Tartar Relation and the Speculum Histioriale), and is still subject to intense scrutiny. This 2013 story details the research of an “amateur” historian thought to have by historians to possibly have found credible new information the map’s actual, later origin. This 2009 opinion claims to prove its’ authenticity…

Let the debate rage on!

Carta marina et descriptio septentrionalium terrarium (Latin) English: Marine map and description of the Northern lands

 

Andreas Walsperger’s World Map, 1448 (oriented with South at the top)

Andreas Walsperger (born ca. 1415) was a German cartographer of the 15th century. The son of a carpenter, he became a Benedictine monk at St. Peter’s in 1434. He left the monastery in 1442; and completed his map in 1448/9.

“Zeitz World Map” (Mappa mundi Ciziensis) from 1470

Circular colorful pictorial map of the world printed in Stuttgart is a reproduction of the famous Ebstorf map which was destroyed in 1943. This large, circular “mappa mundi,” by Gervase of Ebstorf is one of the most famous 13th Century historic maps of the world. David Rumsey Map Collection
 
The Monialium Ebstorfensium Mappamundi is considered to be the German equivalent of the Hereford Mappamundi (below) and is known as the ‘Ebstorf Mappamundi’ (cosmography not cartography) and was produced in 1234 by Gervase of Tilbury.  Read more about it (via bibliodyssey)
 
 

Mappa Mundi – The Ultimate Medieval Map (Hereford, England)

Hand-painted on calfskin vellum, the Hereford Mappa Mundi is the world’s largest medieval map. Created in the very late 1200s the map has spent its entire life in Hereford Cathedral surviving fire, flood, theft, various battles and world wars to present to today’s visitors a mesmerising detail of the world as it was understood at the time.
 
The map is split into three main parts (click on it to view it in more detail) – Asia is the top half of the map (maps in those days have east at the top and the Orient sees the sun first, Europe in the lower left and Africa in the lower right. In an embarrassing timeless gaffe, the author labels Europe as Africa and Africa as Europe. The very centre is reserved for Jerusalem with the Mediterranean just below it as the divider of the three known continents.
 
Each of the over 400 marked cities are identified by a castle or cathedral with the name of the city. Rivers and seas curl through the map like veins. A further hundred or so animals, people, biblical events and plants fill the gaps reinforcing prejudices and legends of the times. Mythical creatures like fire-breathing dragons and griffins are drawn into the Asian section as an area not understood, faraway and hence dangerous and frightening.
 
to see a super detailed view, go to William Cowley; Makers of the Finest Quality Parchment and Vellum and click the map image (2048 × 2048)
A 12th Century Mappa Mundi has been re-created using paint made from ground up lapis lazuli, malachite, a pigment known as ‘dragon’s blood’, ink from oak galls and 23.5 carat gold leaf
The three foot by four foot map, handcrafted on calfskin, is the first serious modern attempt to make a medieval world map. It is based on the Sawley Map – the only surviving English 12th Century Mappa Mundi, which is kept in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge – and the Hereford Map which dates from around 1300.
 
The map, commissioned by English Heritage, is to be placed in a suite of rooms in Dover Castle’s keep which are being refurbished to look as they did when King Henry II built them in the 1180s. Dr Steven Brindle, the English Heritage historian behind the project, said of the map: “We wanted a spectacular and charismatic object that would convey as much as possible about 12th Century culture, about how different the medieval views of geography and spirituality were from our own. 
 
 
Nova Scotia Archives: tern schooner Burleigh ca.1890 – A 3-masted ship of 200 to 400 tons. Most cargo carrying Tern Schooners were built between 1870 and 1920 along the coast of North America.
Schooners: Workhorses of the Sea – (to see the gallery, click VIRTUAL EXHIBIT)
 
Mary A Whalen– People have been asking us, so here’s a BARNACLE PARADE UPDATE. We hear from Ben Schneider that it will be a benefit for Puerto Rico! As usual, it’s the anniversary (of the) day of hurricane Sandy, eg, October 29. That’s a Sunday this year. Parade at 2:00pm, block party at 5:00ish. Muster on Pioneer between Van Brunt and Imlay. Leaving and returning there. Check out the The Barnacle Parade Facebook page for updates.
A seal pokes its head out of the water at the Chatham Fish Pier. Photo by John Tlumacki/Boston Globe Staff Photos of the Month; September 2017
 Special Thanks this week to Simon Egleton