California Was an Island (Mexico, interior, historical, years)

[sargentodiaz]

Being very involved with researching the history of my home state, I always leap on anything that furthers it. These maps show just how little early explorers knew of our world. But, they also show just how adventurous they were. The main character of my next novel, Fernando Rivera, was part of a Jesuit expedition to disprove or prove this belief by travel through the rugged Baja terrain to discover the mouth of the Colorado River.

The entire collection can be viewed and downloaded /@ The Glen McLaughlin Map Collection of California as an Island - SearchWorks (SUL)

[ovcatto]

Really great navigators but amazingly horrendous cartographers.

[Zot]

This may be a fraud, I don't see an edge to the world or dragons near the edge.

It may be hard to believe, but 400 years ago, cartography wasn't as well developed as it is today. People made mistakes.

What you see is an error, maybe a recorded historical error, but still an error.

[Grandstander]

California Was an Island

Yeah, we never should have let ourselves get talked into joining the rest of the continent.

[Snowball7]

I have to admit, it does look a lot more fun that way.

[Ruth4Truth]

Well, the early explorers studies the coasts well, and a few must have sailed up to bay on the east side of Baja to some extent, but didn't explore it fully, obviously. So they assumed it extended north. Back in the day, the important thing was to locate coastal bays that could serve as ports and sheltered coves. They weren't interested in the interior.

[Dane_in_LA]

Now I want to sail around the Isle of California...

[sargentodiaz]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

Well, the early explorers studies the coasts well, and a few must have sailed up to bay on the east side of Baja to some extent, but didn't explore it fully, obviously. So they assumed it extended north. Back in the day, the important thing was to locate coastal bays that could serve as ports and sheltered coves. They weren't interested in the interior.

There are major problems about sailing north along the coast of Mexico and California - contrary winds and currents. In the early 1700s, it two TWO WEEKS to sail from Acapulco to Loreto located only halfway up the Baja peninsula.

The early explorers never reached the outlet of the Colorado River into the Sea of Cortez until about 1730. The early explorers reached a bay they named Monte Rey but only Sir Francis Drake discovered San Francisco Bay.