CHARTS

All five items rolled up. ONE: Cloth-backed map. Title in large coloured fancy letters at head: 'PLAN OF TREVAUNANCE COOMBE'. Dimensions: 99 x 353 cm (3 1/4 feet x 11 1/2 feet). 'Scale | 4 FATHOMS TO 1 INCH'. Oval stamp of Henderson & Son, Civil Engineers, Truro, in bottom right-hand corner, with manuscript date 31 March 1885. Drawn in black ink, and coloured in blue, grey, brown and red. In fair condition, aged and worn. Striking and attractive, with neat lettering, fancy compass (with projected line marked 'MAGNETIC | 1881'), and ruled border with decorative corners.

The subtitle reads in full: 'Description in detail of the boundary between the British Protectorate of Sierra Leone and the Protectorate of the Republic of Liberia as it runs from the river Makona (K) or Moa (M) in the north to the river Magowi in the south: together with the list of the cairns erected and other marks to identify the same. ' 15pp., foolscap 8vo. Stapled. In fair condition, on aged paper, with staining from staples. Small grey rectangular stamp at foot of first page, completed in manuscript: 'West African | 95 | Fo 2'.

A fine plan, so neatly and delicately drawn that it could easily pass for an engraving. The title concludes: '[...] its Defence under the Command of SIR SIDNEY SMITH. Kt. &ca. &ca. &ca. - on the 2nd: day of May 1799.' In landscape on one side of a piece of laid paper, 29 x 42cm, with the plan itself within a 19.5 x 32.5cm border. The drawing and the precise and detailed lettering are in ink, the whole coloured in grey, brown, pink and blue watercolour. On aged and lightly-creased paper, with a couple of small unobtrusive holes. On a scale of one and a half inches to half a mile.

Printed in black and red on piece of thick paper, 88 cm x 103 cm. In fair condition, lightly-aged. Insert map of the Golden Horn, and three sections (one of 'Mark for clearing Stefano Bank'), together with a table of conversion from 'British Units - Metres'. Printed beneath the title are six 'Cautions', with no. 2, relating to 'landing places of cables', printed in red. The title continues '[...] | under the direction of Admiral Hamelin of the French Imperial Navy. Chibuldi Bay to Dikili Rock by the Officers of H.M.S. "Spitfire" 1853.

8vo, 6 pp. Two bifoliums sewn together. On laid paper with Britannia watermark. Text clear and complete. Neatly written out at approximately 38 lines to the page. On aged paper, with slight damage to the first bifolium, the leaves of which are detaching at the spine. Some of the items have been lightly scored through in pencil, but are still legible. The inclusion of such items as '149 Blank Silk Paper for copying Maps' would appear to indicate that the document is an inventory (for probate?) of a cartographer's stock. Last two entries read '165 Blank Sheets of Paper for copying Maps.

All three letters good, on lightly aged paper. Close's first letter (12mo, 2 pp): He is pleased to hear 'that Professor O. T. Jones is convalescent and back at work'. Close will write to him to ask if he will take part in the 'Commission' on the 'Terrasses littorales'. Having none 'handy', he is writing to the Admiralty Hydrographer for a 'list of Admiralty Charts'. The Closes have 'settled to take a house in Jersey for the children's holidays', so there is 'little chance of our being at Oxford for the British Association meeting'.