Justification of Mr Murdoch M'Kenzie's Nautical Survey of the Orkney Islands and Hebrides, in Answer to the Accusations of Doctor Anderson

FIRST EDITION, [3], 55p, paper flaw on D4, upper corner of last 4 leaves lightly soiled, later half calf over contemporary marbled board, spine gilt with contemporary red morocco label, 8vo, Edinburgh, for William Creech, 1785

Murdoch Mackenzie is one of the great names in cartography, whose charts of Orkney waters in the 18th century are still used today.

Mackenzie received instruction from Colin Maclaurin, Professor of Mathematics at Edinburgh University in 1725, on the principles behind land surveying and measurement. Born in Orkney, he benefited from local assistance and equipment loaned from the Navy Board, in his survey from 1744 to 1747. This was the first survey of the islands based on a rigid triangulation framework. Mackenzie became the first person to accurately chart the coastline around North Ronaldsay where many vessels had come to grief. Following the publication of his Orcades (1750), the Admiralty commissioned him to survey the west coast of Scotland and Ireland; thirteen charts of Scotland appear in his A Maritime Survey of Ireland and the West Coast of Great Britain (1776). In 1774, Mackenzie was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and in the same year he published A Treatise of Maritime Surveying, which remained a standard work on hydrographic surveying for over half a century.

The Justification is a response to the detailed attack on the accuracy of his charts from the Enlightenment philosopher James Anderson. The work is a series of letters containing criticisms by James Anderson, with replies by Mackenzie defending himself. There are also letters by others including another Enlightenment figure, John Clerk of Elgin, coming to the defence of Mackennzie. Compiled by John Clerk, the original correspondence appeared in the ‘Caledonian Mercury’.

A Scarce Work.

[ESTC:T133583, Robinson, 1972; The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland, Vol. 2: Enlightenment and Expansion 1707-1800]