T H E  N E A T L I N E
		A Newsletter of the Texas Map Society           Vol V No 2 Winter 2002

Neatline features a map that appeals to one of our members in each issue. You are invited to submit such a map to the editor, preferably as a black and white print or in a digital format along with a short commentary. The current map and commentary is courtesy of Texas Map Society member David Finfrock.

This untitled map is interesting enough in its own right.  But what makes it especially fascinating is that it is still included in the original monthly magazine in which it was published.  The Gentleman's Magazine was very successful.  Its first issue was in 1731, and it continued publishing until the 20th Century.  And in this men's magazine, the centerfold featured a map rather than a pinup!

In the issue of June 1763 appeared an article entitled "Some Account of Louisiana, or the Western Parts of Virginia and Carolina, and of the Countries that lie on both sides of the Mississippi, where a Colony from the Plantations is actually now forming."  It described proposed efforts to found an English colony named New Wales "upon the finest part of the Ohio." The accompanying map was drawn by John Gibson, who was a geographer and engraver for the London magazine from 1758 to 1763.  The 9x7 inch map prominently features a fictitious "High Land" extending from what would now be the vicinity of Lubbock eastward through north Texas!  The western boundary of Louisiana is aligned with the Pecos and Rio Grande rivers, while at the Appalachians is a note that "Formerly the French claimed all Country Westward of this Line."

But reading the accompanying text reveals much more than examining the map by itself.  Along the Louisiana and Texas coasts are identified the "finest oaks in the world" for shipbuilding, and the river of the Cenis "which is broad, deep and navigable."  But "…it appears that the Mississippi affords the most extensive navigation of any river we know, so that it may justly be compared to an inland sea, which spreads over nine-tenths of the continent of North America, all which the French pretended to lay claim to for no other reason but because they were possessed of a paltry settlement at the mouth of this river."

And although several mines are noted on the map and in the text, it was acknowledged that the real value lay elsewhere: "…the fertile plains of Louisiana would be more valuable than all the mines of Mexico, if they were duly cultivated; they would breed and maintain ten times as many people, and supply them with many more necessities and articles of trade and navigation than the richest mines of Peru."  History proved the authors correct.