THORNTON (John).
A Chart of the Straits of Babelmandell and Moha.
This chart was prepared for the First Edition of John Thornton’s The English Pilot. The Third Book, a pilot guide with charts describing the sea-route round Africa to the East Indies and Far East, the first volume of its kind published anywhere in Europe.
The chart extends from ‘Moha’ and ‘Asab’ (in ‘ABEXINA’) south to ‘Babelmandell’, ‘So. Pt. of Babelmandell’ and ‘The Eight Stone Islands’. depicting the Straits of Bab al Mandab and Al Mukha, at the mouth of the Red Sea.
An untitled inset gives an enlarged depiction of the coast around ‘Moha’.
This is the third state of the chart with the imprint of Samuel Thornton erased, but not replaced; the plate had passed to Mount and Page after the death of Samuel Thornton in 1715 who made the alteration.
