The Island of Lost Maps

by Miles Harvey

  6 “There are many possible readings” Charles Nicholl, The Creature in the Map: A Journey to El Dorado (New York: William Morrow, 1995), p. 23.

  7 “the graves have not beene opened” Walter Raleigh, The Discoverie of the Large, Rich and Bewtiful Empyre of Guiana, ed. Neil L. Whitehead (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), p. 196.

  8 “the deare crossing in every path” Ibid., p. 176.

  9 80 percent in fifty years See Mark Warhus’s discussion in Another America: Native American Maps and the History of Our Land (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), p. 80.

  10 “Indigenous Americans communicated information” Mark Monmonier, Drawing the Line: Tales of Maps and Cartocontroversy (New York: Henry Holt, 1995), p. 107.

  11 renaming perhaps half of the seven hundred thousand towns and cities See Derek Nelson’s discussion in Off the Map: The Curious History of Place Names (New York: Kodansha International, 1997), p. 113.

  12 “there is only the journey” Nicholl, Creature in the Map, p. 11.

  13 like so many dreamers, desperadoes, and idiots Much of my background material for this paragraph comes from The Search for El Dorado, series ed. Dale M. Brown (Alexandria, Va.: TimeLife Books, 1994), pp. 7–34.

  14 “The reports are false” Quoted in Nicholl, Creature in the Map, p. 28.

  15 “gallant knight” Edgar Allan Poe, “Eldorado,” in Edgar Allan Poe: Sixty-seven Tales (New York: Gramercy Books, 1990), p. 752.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: MR. BLAND, I PRESUME

  1 “I have taken a solemn, enduring oath” Henry Morton Stanley, How I Found Livingstone: Travels, Adventures, and Discoveries in Central Africa (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1913), pp. 308–309.

  2 “fevers without number” Ibid., p. 309.

  3 “no theft nor sycophancy” Letter quoted in Jean Delumeau, History of Paradise: The Garden of Eden in Myth and Tradition, trans. Matthew O’Connell (New York: Continuum, 1995), p. 76. This letter—written to the Byzantine emperor by someone claiming to be Prester John, around 1165—was widely circulated. “No one in the Middle Ages doubted its authenticity,” wrote Delumeau.

  4 “the Lost-Boy Complex” See Eric Leed’s chapter on the subject in Shores of Discovery: How Expeditionaries Have Constructed the World (New York: Basic Books, 1995), pp. 198–230.

  5 more than twenty expeditions It is interesting that the man who backed perhaps the most famous of these expeditions was George Peabody, founder of that great library in Baltimore. According to Leed, the philanthropist underwrote Elisha Kent Kane’s 1853 search for Franklin. A bay off the north of Greenland was later named Peabody Bay.

  6 “The Franklin affair was the greatest disaster” Peter Whitfield, New Found Lands: Maps in the History of Exploration (New York: Routledge, 1998), p. 181.

  7 “I … begin to think myself somebody” Quoted in John Bierman, Dark Safari: The Life Behind the Legend of Henry Morton Stanley (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990), p. 118.

  8 Dutch master Jan Vermeer See James A. Welu, “Vermeer: His Cartographic Sources,” Art Bulletin, vol. 57, no. 4 (December 1975): 529–547.

  9 “In thy face I see” William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part II, act III, sc. 1, lines 202–203.

  10 “I found myself gazing at him” Stanley, How I Found Livingstone, p. 413.

  11 “vent [his] joy” Ibid., p. 411.

  12 had trouble concentrating Gilbert Bland, letter to U.S. District Court Judge James H. Michael, Jr., April 16, 1996.

  13 “pattern of problems” Transcript of sentencing hearing in United States of America vs. Gilbert Joseph Bland, U.S. District Court, Charlottesville, Va., December 9, 1996.

  14 “The first thing I’d like to say” Ibid.

  15 “In the court’s view” Ibid.

  16 “a persistent misunderstanding” Order by Judge Michael, January 8, 1997.

  17 “the penalty is not severe enough” Quoted in Todd Nelson, “Judge Vetoes Plea Bargain in Map Case: The Plea Arrangement for a Man Who Admitted Taking Papers from UNC-CH Is Termed Too Lenient,” Raleigh, N.C., News & Observer (December 20, 1996): 1B.

  18 “I think the biggest punishment” Paul R. Thomson, Jr., in transcript of sentencing hearing in United States of America vs. Gilbert Joseph Bland, December 9, 1996.

  19 “To discover is to draw the veil” Mauricio Obregón, “Why Columbus?” in The Columbus Papers: The Barcelona Letter of 1493, the Landfall Controversy, and the Indian Guides, ed. Mauricio Obregón (New York: Macmillan, 1991), p. 3.

  20 literally millions of people See Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998), pp. 225-234. Hochschild estimates that through murder, starvation, exhaustion, exposure, disease, and declining birthrates, the population in the Congo Free State declined by 10 million as a result of Leopold’s brutal policies.

  21 “a genuine interest” James R. Creekmore, letter to author, October 30, 1996.

  22 “Nature conceives of innumerable things” Quoted in Peter Whitfield, The Image of the World: Twenty Centuries of World Maps (San Francisco: Pomegranate Artbooks, 1994), p. 2.

  EPILOGUE: LIFTING OFF

  1 “I can see the whole state” Quoted in John Noble Wilford, The Mapmakers (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981), p. ix.

  2 “The authorities never contacted me” Although this source did not request anonymity—and although he was well aware that I was a journalist working on the Bland story—I have chosen not to mention his name, since his comments did not occur within the context of a formal interview.

  3 “I’m under [psychiatric] medicine” University of Delaware videotape of Gilbert Bland, March 27, 1997.

  4 The most telling picture I ever saw See Corey Lowenstein’s photo accompanying Jay Price’s story, “Quiet Appearance for Map Thief,” Raleigh, N.C., News & Observer (July 2, 1996): 1B.

  5 “the world’s most powerful civilian spacecraft” William J. Broad, “Private Spy in Space to Rival Military’s,” New York Times (April 27, 1999): D1–2.

  6 “We find ourselves in the midst” Stephen S. Hall, Mapping the Next Millennium: The Discovery of New Geographies (New York: Random House, 1992), p. 6.

  7 “It’s like being able to drain” The oceanographer David Sandwell, quoted in Ken Miller, “Spy Data Gives First Clear View of Sea Floor,” Gannet News Service (October 23, 1995). See also Earl Lane, “Bottom of Sea Viewed in Detail: Navy Satellite Helps Map Oceans’ Floors,” Newsday (October 24, 1995): A17.

  8 Sloan Digital Sky Survey See Kelly Campbell, “What’s Next: A 3-D Map of 1 Billion Light Years,” Newsday (September 29, 1998): C13; Charles W Petit, “Mapping the Heavens,” U.S. News & World Report, vol. 124, no. 22 (June 22, 1998): 56; and Alexandra Witze, “The Big Picture,” Dallas Morning News (April 27, 1998): 6D.

  9 create life-forms See Roger Highfield, “We Can Create Life, Says Scientist,” Daily Telegraph of London (January 25, 1999).

  10 “opening up the territory of the mind” Rita Carter, Mapping the Mind (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998), p. 6.

  11 “an individual’s state of mind” Ibid., pp. 6–7.

  12 “These are the early days” Ibid., p. 8.

  13 They never found it Although investigators never located the satellite, they believe that they know what happened to it. In reviewing the mishap, a panel of experts concluded that, because of an electrical problem, the aerodynamic covering over the payload failed to come off properly. Because the covering did not fall away from the rocket, the satellite was probably dragged back down into the atmosphere, where it burned up. Another Ikonos satellite was launched—successfully—on September 24, 1999.

  MILES HARVEY began reporting on Gilbert Bland in 1996 for Outside magazine. He has worked for UPI and In These Times, and he was the book-review columnist for Outside. A graduate of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and the University of Michigan, he has had a lifelong fascination with maps. He can be reached via the Internet a
t www.milesharvey.com.