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A Chart of Liar’s harbor; or Yanky har.[bo]r from actual survey, by Capt C Barnerd & Do[nald] Mackay ... Lat 62 31’ S. Lon. 60 W: A Chart of Liar’s harbor; or Yanky har.[bo]r from actual survey, by Capt C Barnerd & Do[nald] Mackay ... Lat 62 31’ S. Lon. 60 W

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  • Title:
    A Chart of Liar’s harbor; or Yanky har.[bo]r from actual survey, by Capt C Barnerd & Do[nald] Mackay ... Lat 62 31’ S. Lon. 60 W: A Chart of Liar’s harbor; or Yanky har.[bo]r from actual survey, by Capt C Barnerd & Do[nald] Mackay ... Lat 62 31’ S. Lon. 60 W
  • Author: Mackay, Donald ; Barnard, Charles H. (1781- c.1840)
  • Description: "Manuscript in ink (in the hand of Donald Mackay) on wove paper measur-ing approx 220 by 330mm. Scale 10cm to 1 mile. A couple of closed tears and small chips, removed from an album. Yankee Harbour, Greenwich Island, South Shetland Islands, 15 February, 1821. Rare and important: one of the earliest manuscript maps of the South Shetland Islands from the earliest period of nineteenth-century Antarctic exploration. This map was drawn less than two years after the islands were discovered by William Smith in February 1819, and just five months after Bellinghausen became the sec-ond European to cross the Antarctic circle.Word of Smith’s discovery spread quickly among the sealing community in England, New England, and New York. Several ships were dispatched and, sailing on the Aurora under Captain Robert Macy, was the Pacific veteran Donald Mackay. They left New York in July 1820 and returned in May 1822. They evidently reached Yankee Harbor in February 1821. Situated on the south coast of Greenwich island, with its long peninsula, it affords natural protection to sealers. It is inhabited by gentoo penguins, skua, and Antarctic fur seal. The Southern elephant seal, and the Weddell seal are also found in its waters.This map shows the harbour in its entirety. Glaciers lining the shore are noted as “ice bergs”, and there are four “low beaches” and two “naked rocks” on the inner harbour. Mount Ephraim is identified on the west and Ragged Point on the east and there are several soundings (from two to twenty-five fathoms) noted in the harbour. A large compass rose sits in the centre.In addition to those in Mackay’s own journal (held at the Nantucket Historical Association), there are only a handful of comparable charts in institutions. Charles Willet Poynter was a midshipman on the Brig Williams. His logbook (held at the National Library of New Zealand) covers the period of 16 December 1819 to 16 April 1820 and includes three small charts. The first is a general chart: New South Britain, as surveyed by officers from Andromache in the Hired Brig Williams, plus a chart of Georges Bay (now King Georges Bay) and a chart of the bay south of Cape Shirreff. Similarly, four of the charts made by Edward Bransfield on the same voyage have survived and are held at the Hydrographic Office. They are: an untitled chart of the South Shetland Islands and Trinity Land; an untitled chart showing South Shetland Islands with boxes drawn on it for the views, for the engraver to work from; a chart of Georges Bay; and another titled Plan of Georges Bay South Shetland by E. Bransfield, Master RN, 1820. The State Library of New South Wales holds William Smith’s 1820 map A view of the land discovered by the Brig Williams of Blyth Feb.y 1819, William Smith Master ... and notes that it is similar to the chart by Henry Foster, Midshipman, H.M.S. Creole, dated January 1820, also held at the Hydrographic Office. In 1822, George Powell published a map of the Shetland Islands from his time there in 1821 and 1822.Not only is this map an extremely rare survival, it reminds us of how the discovery of Antarctica occurred. The earliest phase wasn’t just dominated by Cook on Resolution and Adventure, Dumont d’Urville on l’Astrolabe and Zélée, or James Clark Ross’s Erebus and Terror. Rather it was complemented by a fleet of sealers and whalers in the search for new hunting grounds. If further proof were needed, in the summer of 1823, James Weddell, a sealer on the brig Jane and cutter Beaufoy, established a new farthest south of 74° 15’S.Donald Mackay (dates unknown, though possibly from Stonington Connecticut) sailed twice with Edmund Fanning in 1802 on the Aspasia and in 1817 on the Sea Fox to the Pacific. He also captained the schooner Brothers to Fiji in 1809-10. There are four surviving journals from this time and Mackay’s is the most detailed of them. It was the subject of an article by Samuel Latham Mitchill (1764–1831) who considered it “extraordinary.”Charles H. Barnard (1781- c.1840) is best known for spending eighteen months marooned, with four crew-members, on New Island in the Falklands. Barnard told the story to James Weddell, who devoted five pages to it in his A Voyage Toward the South Pole (London, 1825), writing, “A particular account of this residence on an uninhabited Island would not fail of being considered almost as wonderful as the celebrated fiction of Robinson Crusoe.” Four years later, Barnard published his own account of this time, A Narrative of the Sufferings and Adventures of Capt. Charles H. Barnard, in a Voyage Round the World ... (New York, 1829).Provenance: de-accessioned from the Rochester Historical Society in a small archive of Mackay’s papers." (Magg's Bros, 2022) Mitchill, S.L., “Articles of Intelligence from Conversations held at Dr Mitchell’s” inThe Minerva, No. 8, Vol. 1 (New York, 1 June 1822), p.61.
  • Publisher: Manuscript
  • Creation Date: 1821
  • Language: English
  • Source: David Rumsey Historical Map Collection
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