"A Description of the Bay of Fundy Shewing ye Coast, Islands, Harbours, Creeks, Coves, Rocks, Sholes, Soundings & Anchorages, etc. observed by Nat. Blackmore in ye year 1711 and 1712" . . . is a historically significant 18th-century copper-engraved map by Herman Moll and published by Thomas Bowles.
It dates to c 1740, and the information Moll used to drawthemap was from the work of Nathaniel Blackmore. The map charts the majority of the bay, with the New Brunswick coast at the top and at Nova Scotia bottom right.
The sailing guide lower left mentions the tidal range of the Bay, which is the largest in the world.
The map includes meticulous notes and observations for sailors in the region. Nathaniel Blackmore surveyed the coastline of L'Acadie between November 1711 and September 1712 on board the brigantine Betty. The map is drawn from Nathaniel Blackmore's "This Plaine Chart of the Coasts on the Province of Nova Scotia et L'Accadia &…by Nathaniel Blackmore anno 1714/15".
Herman Moll (c. 1654-1732) was one of the most important London mapmakers in the first half of the eighteenth century. Moll was born in Bremen, Germany, around 1654 but moved to London to escape the Scanian Wars. His earliest work was as an engraver for Moses Pitt on the production of the English Atlas, and had set up his own shop by the 1690s.
Over the course of his career, he published dozens of geographies, atlases, and histories, not to mention numerous sheet maps. His most famous works are Atlas Geographus, a monthly magazine that ran from 1708 to 1717, and The World Described (1715-54). He also frequently made maps for books, including those of Dampier’s publications and Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Moll died in 1732. It is likely that his plates passed to another contemporary, Thomas Bowles, after this death.
Thomas Bowles operated his print-selling business next to the Chapter House in St. Paul’s Churchyard. He collaborated with John Bowles, located at the Black Horse in Cornhill, to distribute the map across London.
