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Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 12:25:38 -0400
From: ahudson <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: William Heather in NYT
Sender: ahudson <[log in to unmask]>



     The top editorial in the New York Times, for Friday, July 23, 1999, p.
     A26,  the morning of the burial at sea of JFK, jr., wife and
     sister-in-law, is a meditation on William Heather's 1799 chart of
     coastal New England and its soundings. Quite an amazing piece, written
     with the understanding of a collector, or cartographic scholar, or at
     least one whose life has been infused with the spirit of the mapping
     and charting world.

     A portion of the first, and then the final paragraph:


     In 1799 a London cartographer named William Heather prepared a map of
     coastal New England. On Heather's chart the Atlantic Ocean is a blank,
     a generality of uninked paper. But Martha's Vineyard and
     Nantucket...are surrounded by shoals of numbers...


     Sailor after sailor has taken a measure of the home waters around
     Martha's Vineyard, but there is obviously no sounding death. Like the
     blank Atlantic on William Heather's chart, it is featureless. We build
     upon its shore, we walk its beaches. From time to time we stop looking
     inland, where life is, and turn to look out over an immensity that
     frightens us and gives us, at the same time, a certainty in which
     there is much consolation. The moment passes, but grief remains part
     of us.


     There is more, and I am sure it can be found on the NYT website.

     Thanks to Nancy Kandoian for spotting this editorial.

     Alice C. Hudson
     Map Division, NYPL
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