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Reviews
AMERICA DISCOVERED: A HISTORICAL ATLAS OF NORTH AMERICAN EXPLORATION
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by Derek Hayes
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Vancouver, British Columbia, Douglas & McIntyre, 2004.
Illustrations, maps, bibliography, index. 224 pages. $40.00 cloth. |
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| America Discovered by geographer Derek Hayes is a marvelously crafted visual work. Its 280 color maps range from the controversial fifteenth-century Vinland map, possibly the first map to show a portion of the North American continent, to some of the latest and most stunning examples of contemporary images derived from satellites orbiting high above Earth's surface. Text summarizing North American exploration accompanies the maps. A handy map catalog in the back of the volume identifies the author and location of each of the original maps, including the always useful reference numbers for major collections such as the Library of Congress, the British Museum, and other archives. |
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If one is interested in perusing the historical development of cartographic depictions of the North American continent from its earliest discoverers to the present, Hayes's collection ranks favorably with similar works in its artistic presentation. Unfortunately, here ends the resemblance to works such as The Mapping of America by Ralph Ehrenberg and Seymour Schwartz or The Atlas of North American Exploration by William Goetzmann and Glyndwr Williams. These works are authoritative reference works, with text grounded in a firm knowledge of both the process of exploration in North America and the development of cartographic representations of the continent. Hayes's book can claim to be neither authoritative nor accurate. It is so filled with errors of omission and commission that all of the book's visual splendor cannot come close to making up for its inaccuracies. |
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Even the casual reader will recognize quickly that the book is not what it purports to be. A claim is made early in the book — and on its dust jacket — that the geographical knowledge of indigenous people will be an important part of the contents. Yet, of the 280 maps in the book, five are specifically based on Indian information and, when the text mentions Indian/explorer contacts, it usually does so in an offhand way by referring occasionally to information obtained by Indians. |
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Unfortunately, such disingenuous claims are far from the worst feature of the book. The text is written in a chatty or even gossipy fashion, as if the author were sharing with readers knowledge that is possessed only by the most erudite. Yet, on numerous occasions, the author demonstrates an appalling lack of familiarity with some of the most essential elements of North American exploration and the basics of exploratory cartography. The lack of careful scholarship is apparent almost from the beginning. In his introduction, Hayes describes how John Wesley Powell, on his exploration of the Colorado River, found carved on the wall of "an inaccessible canyon" the inscription "D. Julien, 3 Mai, 1836." Hayes does not tell us how either Powell or "D. Julien" got to an inaccessible canyon. But he does conclude in his typical, overdramatic fashion that "Powell was not the first past that spot for sure; yet we know nothing of poor Julien" (p. 7). A quick glance at Leroy Hafen's ten-volume collection, The Mountain Men and Fur Trade of the Far West (1965–1972), however, shows a fourteen-page biography of Denis Julien and copies of inscriptions he left at several places in the Grand Canyon (7:177-90). |
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It would take much more space than is available in a review to even begin to list other mistakes in the book. Let two examples from one small section spanning the years 1803–1812 suffice. On pages 140–1, Hayes discusses maps associated with the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He hopelessly confuses a pre-Expedition map drawn by Nicholas King in 1803 with King's copy of a map William Clark sent back from the Mandan villages after the first season of exploration — claiming that the latter map "represents the sum total of the geographical knowledge of the expedition before starting up the Missouri" (p. 141). If the cartography of the Lewis and Clark Expedition were arcane or poorly known, Hayes could perhaps be forgiven such a lapse. But the cartography of the Expedition is one of its most-studied aspects. |
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In discussing the explorations of the Astorians in 1810–1812, Hayes notes that Robert Stuart, leading a party eastward from the mouth of the Columbia in 1812, crossed over South Pass, but that knowledge of that crossing "remained known only to John Jacob Astor until 1836" (p. 154). That lapse certainly would have been news to the editorial writers of a St. Louis newspaper who, in 1813, noted that Stuart's journey proved that a transcontinental journey "might be performed with a wagon, there being no obstruction in the whole route that any person would dare call a mountain" (Missouri Gazette, May 15, 1813). |
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Errors similar to those listed above are scattered liberally throughout the work, marring what could have been a nicely crafted combination of fine map reproduction and authoritative text. This work's chief value is as a coffee-table display, to be picked up idly by the casual visitor and thumbed through. Its colorful maps can be appreciated as visual artifacts, but the book is not terribly instructive regarding either the maps' creators or the process of exploration that gave them meaning. |
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| JOHN L. ALLEN
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| University of Wyoming, Laramie |
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