JOHN ADAIR: AN EARLY MAP-MAKER AND HIS WORK. By HARRY R. G. INGLIS, F.S.A. Scot.

WHEN a wordy dispute arises between two antagonists of fairly equal calibre, however important the point at issue may be, the onlooker is usually only interested in its amusing side. In no case is this side more observable than in the papers preserved in the Register House, Edinburgh relating to Slezer, the author of Theatrum Scotiae, and John Adair, the map-maker.

Of Adair's personality or history we know little more than that between 1682 and 1688 he drew a series of maps of the Scottish counties, of the finest quality, the originals of which are preserved in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh; the British Museum, London; and the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Other maps are known to have existed, but these, and a few of his "Sea Maps," are all that have come to light so far. These maps are, in almost every respect, models of workmanship, being clear, minute, and with an artistic effect in their appearance, quite different from the confused manuscripts of Timothy Pont.

But, on the other hand, the Register House papers reveal a not very satisfactory state of affairs for which there is no adequate explanation. Large sums of money were given to Adair from time to time, without any visible result being attained in the way of issuing the maps. From the Privy Council Records we know that in 1682 he got a subsidy of £100 a year, to enable him to complete a series of County Maps of Scotland which he projected, and although these were actually surveyed and drawn by 1686, it was not till long after Adair was dead that the chief maps were engraved and published.

As there is no public record of what Adair did, or was expected to do, to understand the earlier course of events between the Privy Council grant in 1682, and the Register House papers beginning 1691, we have to go to the maps themselves, and as they are nearly all dated, we can see the rapid progress made at this period. Assuming that he would begin at Edinburgh, and then do West Lothian (neither map is dated, nor is Clackmannan), the following is the list of manuscripts extant:--

British Museum and Advocates'

Library (less complete).1

With the completion of these maps passes what might be called the most satisfactory period of Adair's life, and as the date of the last map came fairly near the political crisis of 1688, it is a natural inference that the advent of William and Mary brought about a new set of conditions, and in the process Adair was dropped and his work unsupported. Be that as it may, Adair was "ready to perish" for want of funds in 1686, and it was not till 1691 that help appears to have been given in some form. As already stated, it is not by any means clear in what relation Adair stood to the authorities, for all along he seems to have been working on the maps, but whether it was through having a little means of his own, or through the help of Sir Robert Sibbald, his patron-the Geographer Royal for Scotland-is so far quite unknown.

The Register House papers, however, contain a series of reports, in which Adair, having succeeded in interesting the authorities, informs a Commission, in 1692, that four maps are complete-The Water of Forth, the Water of Tay, the Water of Clyde, and St. Abb's Head to (?Sunderland Point); land maps of East Lothian, West Lothian, Middle Lothian; one of Stirlingshire and Menteith; one of Clackmannanshire; two of Fife and Kinross-shire; one of Perthshire; one about Angus; one general map of Gallowayshire; one of Nithsdale and Renfrew; 1 and one particular map of Cunningham and Renfrew.

So satisfied were the Commission with his work, and with his proposals to go on with a series of "Sea Maps," that a tax of 4s. a ton was levied on all "foreign" shipping at the Scottish ports, and 1s. a ton on home shipping, the revenue to be collected and handed to Adair to prepare maps for the use of mariners. All was well so far.

But at this point a Captain Slezer-an Artillery officer, described as a "High German" -appears on the scene; says he is compiling a most important book relating to Scotland, with many pictures; asserts that his work is of equal national importance to Adair's; and claims a share of this tax. Without any reason being given, his claim is admitted; so that one can only imagine that, in the political changes of the time, Slezer had some Court influence through service rendered to William of Orange, and that for this reason his application was successful.

Thereupon ensued a continuous wrangle between Slezer and Adair, which lasted for many years. Adair would apply for a grant towards his expenses, and, getting some money, Slezer would immediately apply for his proportion, only to find that, as the funds were low, there was little for him. Then Adair applies for more money, pleads great poverty after heavy outlays, which, when Slezer hears of, he instantly urges the Commissioners not to pay Adair anything more, because he has not done what he undertook to do. After much wrangling, each gets something; but Slezer is never satisfied, while Adair's expenses are always increasing.

The unfortunate and inexplicable fact is that Slezer's statements seem perfectly true. We know that by 1686 Adair had drawn and

دو

completed all his "Land Maps," for which he had drawn his salary, and yet they were never issued. He reports that in 1694 ten "Sea Maps and ten "Land Maps" were finished, four others were almost ready, and still the Commission seem to be quite satisfied. But, alas, in 1695 he is no further forward, and in 1696 they are still not finished. In 1698 Adair gets another £6001 for a West Coast Survey, and yet, strange to say, the other maps still remained unpublished. Nevertheless, Adair gives a full list of his disbursements; explains that in 1692 he brought an engraver (Moxon) from Holland; in 1695 he says that Mr. Clark, the engraver, has finished several maps; in 1696 he has paid £1101 for engraving, £851 for large copperplates, £921 for polishing same, and still the Commission are satisfied, and Adair continues to get his money. Poor Slezer, on the other hand, is ignored, and his requests for money seem either to be held over, or granted only after persistent pleading. Apparently he is not a persona grata.

In the later papers the vituperations come to a climax, for Slezer roundly makes the charge against Adair to the Commissioners that he is no further forward in 1698 than he was in 1694, and that Adair is just inventing excuses for not completing the maps, in order to obtain more money.

In return for this, Adair informs the Commissioners that Slezer is an "illiterat stranger," gathering together a big volume of scraps "only to amaze" the country, attempting a work that would tax the ability of the most learned men in Scotland, and that most of the book consists of scraps from authors as unlearned as himself; that Slezer sits at home in comfort, while Adair in his surveying expeditions has been three times driven on shore by storms, and has had great hardships and perils.

At this period the Register House papers cease, but we know that in the end five maps of the East Coast were issued in a little Atlas in 1703, with descriptions by Adair, prefaced by a Map of Scotland. This latter was apparently copied from one issued a century previously by a French geographer, Nicolay, but no important changes were made in the outline of the less known North of Scotland, such as we would expect if Adair had surveyed the West Coast, as he claimed, for the outline of the Hebrides is not changed from that of Mercator of 1564. Only one of the maps in this atlas is dated, that of Montrose Harbour, by Clark, dated 1695.

As to the "Land Maps," three were engraved, Clackmannan (sent out to try to get subscriptions for the other maps, and very roughly engraved); Stirlingshire (Windings of the Forth), dated 1688, and engraved by Moll; Strathearn (undated), engraved by Moxon (whose work is mostly from 1675 to 1692). The other maps were not engraved, apparently, till long after Adair's death, and some have never been issued at all. The Map of Ettrick Forest in the list of manuscripts requires special attention, because in none of his lists does Adair ever mention this map, and from the title on it, and its resemblance to Gordon of Straloch's map of the same district, it would almost appear as if Adair had merely copied this map, for he makes no claim to have surveyed it. The Map of Strathearn referred to above is probably the Map of Perthshire referred to in the inventory of 1692.

The following is the list of printed maps by Adair. The first six appear in Adair's Description of the Sea Coast, a work which was intended to have been issued in several parts, but only the first was attempted.

1. Map of Scotland, based on Nicolay's Map of 1583: engraved by Moxon.

2. Holy Island to St. Abb's Head: engraved by Clark.

3. Forth, Queensferry to St. Abb's: no engraver named.

4. Tay: engraved by Clark.

5. Montrose and Bay: engraved by Clark, 1695.

6. Redhead to Aberdeen: engraved by Clark.

7. Strathearn: engraved by Moxon.

8. Forth (Stirling and Menteith): engraved by Moll; dated 1688.

9. Clackmannanshire: no engraver named.

10. Map of Clyde, published 1731: engraved by Cooper.

11. Map of East Lothian: engraved by Cooper.

12. Map of Midlothian: engraved by Cooper.

13. Map of West Lothian: engraved by Cooper.

(Cooper's work is mostly about 1730-42, but his name appears as late as 1753 as an engraver.)

These are all the published maps issued as Adair's, but in an Inventory of Maps in his widow's hands, a number of others relating to the West Coast are mentioned, and it would almost appear as if access had been obtained to these about 1710, for a change in the shape of the Hebrides appears on Moll's Map of Scotland (1714), as if a new geographer had made a survey.

Adair's maps of the Lothians were again used by Elphinstone in 1744 (engraved by Smith), but Andrew Millar appears to have got this plate, scraped out the title and engraver's name, and issued it in 1745, showing the Battle of Prestonpans, and with Kitchen's name small beside the title, as if he had engraved the map, whereas it could only be the title that was his. The two maps only differ in title, and in small details.

(It is, perhaps, opportune to mention that in 1739 the Rev. J. Jaffray surveyed the Peterhead coast, and thus continued Adair's work, the map being engraved by Cooper; in 1744 the Rev. A. Bryce surveyed the Pentland Firth and North Coast, and this map was also engraved by Cooper; while in 1750 Murdoch Mackenzie completed the survey of the Orkneys and Lewis, thus, with Adair's West Coast surveys, practically completing the best outline of Scotland that had been attained. The intervening portion of the Moray Firth was well surveyed for Collins's Coasting Pilot, 1693.)

It is not easy to say exactly what was the sum of Adair's contribution to geographical science, for his maps, as a rule, do not show any lines of longitude or latitude. The marks up the margins are miles, not degrees, while he is credited with reckoning 72 miles, in place of the 50 or 60 of the older geographers and the modern 69 miles to a degree.

Looking to the character of his work, and the delicacy and beauty of the delineation of the original drawings, one imagines Adair must have been one of those painstaking, finical workers with the artistic temperament, to whom time was no object, and accuracy of detail of such importance that it was sought after, regardless of its actual value, or of any finality to putting on finishing touches. He spent ten months in Holland and London getting instruments, trying the engravers, and seeing their ways of printing maps. He paid £50 for a quadrant-at which Slezer scoffs; £72 for a sixteen-foot telescope; he goes to the Binn Hill above Kilsyth to calculate the joining of the East and West Coast maps; he spends six months in a fishing-boat surveying the West Coast; he takes a boat specially to find the bearing of a newly discovered rock between Inchkeith and the "Ledy Beacon." Then he buys copperplates in London, on which to engrave maps (probably old map plates), and pays Moxon £98 for the engraving only of the Map of Scotland (111×154) for his Atlas. He buys ten reams of Imperial paper at a cost of £300-probably £25 sterling-but where all these copperplates and paper went to is a mystery. He also bought a small rolling press-probably what we now call a copperplate press-and some printing presses, which latter would be presumably those wooden screw devices we see in the pictures of early printing houses.

Slezer, on the other hand, appears to have been a man of some push, with a fine appreciation of the elegant Dutch pictorial works, but with some traits that did not commend him to his superiors, for his pay of 12s. per diem, as an artillery officer, was reduced to 8s., and when he petitioned for it to be restored-seeing no other officer had been so dealt with-while his petition was granted, nominally, no instructions were given to pay it, so he had to take refuge in Holyrood Sanctuary from his pressing creditors.

With all these matters before us, what position can we say that Adair holds in the development of Scottish Geography? It would appear that his work was highly appreciated by the Commission of the time, yet, looking to the fact that so little was accomplished in the way of publication in his lifetime, there must have been some very serious drawback, which even Sir Robert Sibbald was unable to overcome, and to which we have no clue. For when one reviews the progress made from, say 1681 to 1686, compared with the indefinite results of the next twelve years, coupled with the fact that Sibbald appears to have dropped his patronage of Adair about 1688, and thereafter appears to have had no more to do with him, the impression is left on us that we are here dealing with one of those clever men who are disabled from doing great work by a physical inability to come to a decision to conclude their work-it is always waiting for still another detail to be perfected. It would almost seem as if Sibbald had trans