The pencil marks and compass pricks on a chart by an 18th-century Atlantic sea captain are evidence of the frequent use of the chart aboard ship and make one of the exciting visual stories in an exhibition of one hundred extraordinary maps, atlases, charts, and globes on view at The New York Public Library.
Admission is free.
Support for the Library's exhibitions program has been provided by Pinewood Foundation. I am happy to display these beautiful and important exploration and navigational tools so soon after the gift was received. The maps and charts are not only useful for the information they impart, but they are also exquisite in aesthetic detail. Also on view will be many other celestial charts, manuals of instruction in the arts of compass use and oceanic navigation, and decorative maps produced for the commercial market or as cartographic illustration and documentation. In 1997 the Map Division of The New York Public Library received the gift of a unique and extremely valuable collection of some 750 items from the estate of Lawrence H. Slaughter of Larchmont, New York.