Phantom Islands

Phantom islands are islands that were believed to exist, and appeared on maps for a period of time (sometimes centuries) during recorded history, but were later removed after they were proved to be nonexistent. Phantom islands usually stem from the reports of early sailors exploring new realms. Some arose through the mislocation of actual islands; errors in geography; navigational errors; the misidentification of icebergs, fog banks, or to optical illusions. Other ”errors” were later thought to be intentional, probably for financial gain in some way or another. [Source]

The image is of a 1623 map depicting an island called Brasil, or Hy-Brazil, just off the West coast of Ireland. Like many other phantom islands, the cartographic existence of Hy-Brasil was based on a combination of flimsy legend, faulty observations, wishful thinking, and outright mendacity. Its first recorded appearance on a map dates from around 1325. Sometimes fantasy became indistinguishable from fact: Hy-Brasil was rumoured to be continuously obscured by mist, except for one day every seven years. It must have been on one of those days in 1674 that captain John Nisbet, piercing a sea fog, anchored before the island, and sent a party of four ashore. The amazed sailors spent an entire day on Hy-Brasil, meeting an wizened old man who provided them with gold and silver. A follow-up expedition by a captain Alexander Johnson also found Hy-Brasil, and confirmed captain Nisbet’s findings. But thereafter, Hy-Brasil reverted to its elusive self. [Source]

This is A New Map of England and France: The French Invasion, or John Bull Bombarding the Bum-Boats, a 1793 cartographic masterpiece that depicts an anthropomorphic Britain launching a tidal wave of feces across the English Channel at would-be French invaders and revolutionists.

This piece was drawn by English caricaturist James Gillray, who made his career on thousands of satirical cartoons. This map was Gillray’s response to growing revolutionary zeal on the Continent. Explains the British Museum of this piece:

A comic map […] is represented by the body of George III (John Bull), his head in profile to the right, wearing a fool’s cap composed of ‘Northumberland’. His left leg is drawn up, Norfolk forms the knee, the mouth of the ‘River Thames’ the ankle, Kent the foot. His outstretched right leg terminates as Cornwall. From the coast, at the junction of ‘Hampshire’ and ‘Sussex’, issues a blast of excrement inscribed ‘British Declaration’, which smites a swarm of ‘Bum-Boats’ extending from Ushant to the mouth of the Seine. The map is divided (inaccurately, and with omissions, but with a rough correctness) into counties, Wales representing the flying coat-tails of the King, who strides across the ocean with great vigour.

She knew it like the back of her hand …

The National Archives holds a vast accumulation of historic maps but few are as unusual as this one. It’s a leather glove painted with a map of London landmarks and was designed to help fashionable ladies find their way to and from the Great Exhibition held in London’s Hyde Park in 1851.

As far as we know, the glove was never produced commercially. This example survives because its creator, George Shove, chose to protect his design by registering it with the government. This involved depositing a ‘representation’, which was a sample, a drawing or a photograph of the design, at the Office of the Registrar of Designs.

Something similar.

MAP OF THE
SQUARE AND STATIONARY EARTH.
BY PROF. ORLANDO FERGUSON,
HOT SPRINGS, SOUTH DAKOTA.
Four Hundred Passages in the Bible that Condemns the Globe Theory, or the Flying Earth,
and None Sustain It.
This Map is the Bible Map of the World.
Copyright by Orlando Ferguson, 1893.

A Map of a Woman’s Heart, 1833-1842:

Published by D.W. Kellog between 1833-1842, this amusing Map of the Open Country of Woman’s Heart paints the “fairer sex” in a rather unflattering light. From the mole traps in the Province of Deception, to the city of Moi-meme in the Land of Selfishness, to the Plains of Susceptibility in the Region of Sentimentality, this ever-so-charming illustration certainly demonstrates this Victorian gentleman’s equal taste for maps and disdain for women.

This rather sinister image is one of the biggest mysteries in the history of western cartography. Most often referred to simply as the Fool’s Cap Map of the World, it is unknown why, when, where and by whom it was made. The only thing that can be said about it with some certainty is that it dates from ca. 1580-1590. The map shows the world ‘dressed up’ in the traditional garb of a court jester … The face is hidden by the map, giving the whole image an ominous, threatening quality.

The archetype of the Fool, presented here in his incarnation as the court jester, is a first indicator of the map’s deeper meaning. In previous ages, the Fool was a court figure allowed to mock majesty and to speak truth to power. These were rare and useful correctives to the corrupting absolutism of the monarchies of the day. But criticism of this sort was only possible if it was de-fanged by the grotesque appearance of the Fool - preferably a hunchbacked, slightly loopy-headed dwarf, i.e. someone not to be taken too seriously. 

All of this would have been common knowledge to the people viewing this map in the 16th century. The uncomfortable truth told by this map is that the world is a sombre, irrational and dangerous place, and that life on it is nasty, brutish and short. The world is, quite literally, a foolish place. MORE.