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Alex E wrote:
" the island of Tabor (Maria Teresa in French maps) is on the parallel 37
degrees S, somewhere West of New Zealand"
There is a brief reference to it in Stommel's "Lost Islands: the story of
islands that have disppeared from nautical charts". An interesting passage: "On 9
September 1983 Maria Theresa Reef was moved by the hydrographer from 151d
13'W to 136d 39'W upon reassessment of the old New Bedford whaler Maria Theresa's
log of 1843, and one suspects it will eventually be expunged altogether".
Stommel was writing in 1983 and at that time he could write, in a later
chapter, that satellite imagery and other data could not yet settle the issues with
respect to all of the "possible" islands out in the Pacific. That has changed
significantly in the past twenty years. Gravity data makes it nearly
impossible for the oceans to "hide" any significant island (except in the minor case
of a small island very close to an already charted major island).
Stommel's book is worth reading. It was clearly the expression of the
author's personal passion and main hobby. It includes one quotation on the end of an
era that I think navigators on this list might appreciate. Noting that there
are no islands left to discover, Stommel writes:
"With the exception of a few dreary islands in the Russian arctic, the main
task has been one of extinguishing, one by one, little points of land, some
of which, we cannot help thinking, ought to have existed. There comes a time
when the solution of any puzzle is completed, and the joy of achievement is
alloyed with a melancholy for realms of fantasy and romance forever diminished.
Although the files of the International Hydrographic Bureau still bulge with
thousands of doubtful submerged shoals and pinnacle rocks, it is inconceivable
that, in this age, any true unknown islands will remain undetected."
Well-said. That "joy of a achievement" for a puzzle solved "alloyed with a
melancholy for realms ... forever diminished" sounds familiar...
Frank R
[ ] Mystic, Connecticut
[X] Chicago, Illinois
