African Mapping
Vidal sailed aboard HMS Aetna in December 1835, carrying 12 chronometers. He intended to calculate the meridian arc length to the Cape Verde Islands, and the west coast of Africa. He eventually carried out detailed surveys all along the African coast, so that by 1838 the Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society could remark of the survey that
This tedious undertaking is drawing to a close, and will then be of equal utility to the fair traders and the anti-slavery cruisers. It is fortunately in the hands of such a man as Captain Vidal, R.N., who has steadily devoted himself during a long period of ill-health, to complete this unpopular work, and to connect with it a minute examination of the Canary Islands.
Vidal then carried out surveys of the Azores aboard HMS Styx from September 1841 until January 1845. He then moved aboard the yacht William & Mary to complete the work.
Read more about this topic: Alexander Thomas Emeric Vidal
Famous quotes containing the word african:
“The sacrifice to Legba was completed; the Master of the Crossroads had taken the loas’ mysterious routes back to his native Guinea.
Meanwhile, the feast continued. The peasants were forgetting their misery: dance and alcohol numbed them, carrying away their shipwrecked conscience in the unreal and shady regions where the savage madness of the African gods lay waiting.”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)