Madeira and the Canary Islands (1787)

This map is part of the work The West India Atlas (Atlas of Western India). This atlas was originally published by Thomas Jefferys, but this map belongs to a 1787 reprint in which the Canary Islands and Madeira appear for the first time.

As indicated above, the map has been created using information provided by Thomas López de Vargas Machuca in his topographical survey of 1780 and the geographical observations of Charles Pierre Claret de Fleurieu for the French government in 1769.

The map shows the Madeira archipelago in the top left and the Canary Islands at the bottom. It also includes course lines to facilitate navigation and, interestingly, two unusual meridians are also highlighted:

• The meridian of El Hierro, which crossed the island of El Hierro, long considered the westernmost point of the Old World.
• The meridian of Pico de Tenerife, which crossed Mount Teide on the island of Tenerife. This meridian had been used as a reference by Dutch cartographers and navigators from the mid-17th century until the early 19th century.

In the upper right-hand corner, there is also a detail of the strait separating Lanzarote and La Graciosa; a detail of Puerto Naos and Puerto Cavallo, in Lanzarote; and relief maps of many of the islands represented on the map from different perspectives.

Sources

• A chart of the Maderas and Canary Islands