'Simply by sailing in a new direction / You could enlarge the world.' These words of Allen Curnow's poem 'Landfall in unknown seas' speak to us of the compelling romance of maritime exploration. There are hundreds of seascapes that float into view, with tiny tenacious ships stoically heading for new lands. But for all the seeming haphazardness of maritime exploration there was, by the time New Zealand was discovered by Europeans, a rigorous scientific mode for charting the coasts of unknown territories, a mode which came later to be perfected in the brilliant hydrography of Captain James Cook. Maritime exploration and hydrography go hand in hand.
In New Zealand we are fortunate to have a very rare volume of early hydrographic charts. Recently I have conserved this volume for the Hocken Library at the University of Otago, but before describing how it was conserved I will outline briefly its history. The book is titled The complete East India pilot, from London to any part of the Indian & China seas, Australia, Van Diemens Land & New Zealand , published in London by J. W. Norie & Co. in 1827, with additions to 1829. It consists of 45 fold-out sheets with one chart on each of the sheets. The closed dimensions of the book are 660 mm (height) by 450 mm (width). A few of the sheets are single-fold, but most fold out into four to six sections. Their sizes vary but on average the fold-out sheets are about a metre and a half in length, with the longer sheets over two metres.page 80
The Pilot went through five editions between 1816 and 1827 (with additions to 1829), each one differing from the others. The 1827 edition is significant because it contains a large map of New Zealand based on Cook's chart of 1769, and a sketch of the southern port in Stewart Island by William Stewart. It also contains a sketch of the Bay of Islands and Captain J. Herd's chart of the entrance to what is referred to as 'Jokeehanger River', i.e. the Hokianga harbour. Recent enquiries by Hocken Library staff at the University of Otago have failed to find any other copies in existence, supporting the proposal that this particular copy is unique.
John Norie (1772-1843), who published the charts, was a celebrated mathematician in his day and wrote a number of important navigational books such as The epitome of navigation and Nautical tables. In 1812 he took over an already established printing house set up in 1670 by John Seller at the Sign of the Mariner's Compass, and moved to a new address, Navigation Warehouse, made famous in Dickens's novel Dombey and son. Publication of charts and sailing directions continued at this address right up to 1937.
When I received the book it was in a very tattered condition. Many of the charts were completely detached from the binding and several had split along their fold lines. Some of those which are over two metres long are folded into four to six sections, but over the years they had become incorrectly folded and many were split into a number of pieces. In other areas the paper was weakened and almost macerated by repeated incorrect folding. Along the edges of the paper there were many losses where it had worn away or become torn through handling. The covers are typical 19th-century marbled paper over boards with a leather spine and corners. Over the cover were placed two outer covers of sailcloth carefully stitched in place. The inside cover was almost stiff with the dirt and patina of ship life, providing further evidence of heavy use on board ship.page 83
Briefly, this is how the volume was conserved. After being completely disbound, the charts were dry-cleaned with a finely grated rubber. Care was taken not to erase any pencil annotations. There were literally hundreds of small tears and splits which were repaired with fine Japanese tissue and a wheat starch paste. The Japanese tissue is made from the bark of the mulberry tree and it is very light but with long fibres which give it considerable strength. Because the tissue is feathered into tiny strips about 5 mm wide the repairs can be almost invisible. Some charts, however, especially those pertaining to New Zealand, were so fragile and weak that it was found necessary to line them on the back with whole sheets of paper. In conservation this is always a last resort because here one is substantially, if subtly, interfering with the nature of the original sheet of paper. After some experimenting, a western paper rather than a Japanese one was chosen for this purpose, and Old Cleeve, an English wove from Griffen Mill, was used.
An inherent difficulty in a book of this kind lies in the folded format of the pages. Each sheet was washed in an alkaline water solution and flattened to remove creases. Tears and splits were held together with tiny strips of tissue, and with a diluted wheat starch paste the lining paper was attached to the back of the sheet by the page 84 Japanese technique of lightly padding the paper down with a stiff brush. Perfect adhesion is required here, so the two papers are, as it were, meshed together. Where pieces of chart were missing, the holes were in-filled with a paper resembling the original in weight, texture, and colour. By working over a light table, tracing the missing outline and bevelling the edge of the repair paper with a scalpel, it is possible to get a very neat repair where the original and repair papers harmonise. The rationale of all repair work is to strengthen fragile materials and to re-establish their aesthetic nature.
The time taken for this task was around nine months. It raises the question, of course, of whether the time and money spent on one book is justified. I think the answer lies in the fact that this is a unique item, with high artefactual value because of the significance of the New Zealand charts. With the vast number of books in public collections, increasingly tight budgets and the small number of conservators, emphasis is now on preventive conservation. This means preserving the most items for the least cost by putting into practice policies relating to environmental conditions, security, storage and handling. Conservation ethics, which concern interfering as little as possible with the structure of the book to be conserved, also enter the discussion at this point. Often with fragile books the best solution is to box them. Because of The East India pilot's unique nature, however, it was felt necessary to refold the charts and rebind the volume using all the original materials, so its structure as a working document could be retained. Before rebinding, a microfilm was made at the National Library of New Zealand and a set of high resolution 4x5 negatives were taken. In this way researchers can peruse its contents without jeopardising the original document itself, while the book can still be referred to and displayed so that we can experience the delight of being in contact with the intricacies of The East India pilot.
Thanks to Conservation Services, National Library of New Zealand for the photographs.