Reporting, Mapping, Trusting: Making Geographical Knowledge in the Late Seventeenth Century

Abstract

The essay examines a range of geographical practices used in understanding the geography of Scotland in the late seventeenth century in the work of Sir Robert Sibbald, John Adair, Robert Wodrow, and Martin Martin. Attention is paid to the ways in which geographical knowledge in this period was based not simply upon mapping, reporting, and direct personal encounter but upon establishing trust and credibility and in negotiating social boundaries. The issues of trust and reliance on the word of others, as on the accuracy of one's instruments, are used to raise different questions about the nature of geographical knowledge as a practical science and about the local and situated place of geography in the development of early modern science.

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