Pro tip: got dragged into a debate over whether a 1920s map shows a real island or a printer's error

I was at a shop in Portland last month staring at this old nautical chart of the Pacific when the owner claimed the speck off the coast was just a smudge from the printing press. I argued it matched an island that supposedly sank in the 1800s according to some coastal records. He pulled out a magnifying glass and pointed to the ink density being too even for a mistake. I pulled up a grainy photo from a maritime archive on my phone showing the same shape in an 1887 survey. We stood there for 20 minutes going back and forth while another customer just watched. Neither of us budged and I left without buying it. Has anyone else run into a map feature that could go either way like this?

2 comments

2 Comments

fiona1301mo ago

Found an old fishing charter log once that matched a phantom island off Nova Scotia perfectly...

seth_allen1mo ago

Ngl @fiona130 that sounds like some real life mystery right there.