GEOGRAPHICAL SLATES FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF MAPS
Year: 1808

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, GEORGE
Pocock, of the City of Bristol, Schoolmaster, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third, by His
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Twenty-eighth day
of June now last past, did give and grant unto me, the said George Pocock,
my executors, administrators, and assigns, His special licence, full power,
sole privilege and authority, that I, the said George Pocock, my executors,
administrators, and assigns, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and
vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my
Invention of "GEOGRAPHICAL SLATES FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF MAPS;" in which
Letters Patent there is contained a proviso obliging me, the said George
Pocock, under my hand and seal, to cause a particular description of the
nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be
performed, to be inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within
one calendar month next and immediately after the date of the said in part
recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same, relation being thereunto had,
may more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
George Pocock, do hereby declare that my said Invention of Geographical
Slates for the Construction of Maps is described in manner following (that
is to say)

page_text: My Invention consists in drawing and indenting the lines of latitude and
longitude, or other material lines or projections, according to the sort of map
required, on the substance commonly known by the appellation of slate, which
lines shall serve as guides to learners of geography to sketch the relative
situations of the different parts and kingdoms of the world. In the margin of
these Presents is given a Drawing of the lines that are proper to be drawn and
indented on a slate for the scholar to prepare a map of the eastern and western
hemispheres, though more or less lines may be introduced on slates of various
sizes. Slates for forming maps of the several quarters of the world, or any
part of it, are to be prepared with appropriate lines, according to the kind of
map required. Any convenient means may be adopted of drawing and
indenting the lines on the slates, but the method that appears to me the best
or readiest is to take a thin plate of metal or other suitable substance, upon
which I mark the longitudinal lines of the globe, and cut out the space defined
between the two middle ones, leaving the space on each side solid; I then cut
out spaces between the next two on each side, and so proceed, leaving an alter-
nate space solid and open till I have finished one hemisphere. This plate will
then serve as a ruler or guide by which the longitudinal lines may be drawn
and indented on the slate by a sharp-pointed steel or other proper instrument.
The latitudinal lines will be made in the same way by another plate cut out
in a similar manner.
In witness whereof, I, the said George Pocock, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Twenty-first day of July, One thousand eight