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St Matthew Island (french: Île Saint-Mathieu) is a
phantom island
A phantom island is a purported island which was included on maps for a period of time, but was later found not to exist. They usually originate from the reports of early sailors exploring new regions, and are commonly the result of navigati ...
once thought to lie roughly one thousand
kilometers northeast of
Ascension Island
Ascension Island is an isolated volcanic island, 7°56′ south of the Equator in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is about from the coast of Africa and from the coast of South America. It is governed as part of the British Overseas Territory o ...
in the
Atlantic Ocean. It appeared on
navigational charts until as late as the early twentieth century. It was supposedly located at approximately 2°S 8°W, and was alleged to have been discovered by the
Portuguese on
St. Matthew's Day 1516. It was shown and named on several maps going back to the beginning of the sixteenth century, and it was supposedly visited by
García Jofre de Loaísa on 20 October 1525 while on a voyage to the
Moluccas. It appeared on early Portuguese charts and world maps, and appears on
Ortelius' 1570 map of the African continent ''
Africae Tabula Nova''. It thereafter regularly featured on charts and maps, and though it began to disappear from standard charts starting in the early nineteenth century, it was not completely removed from charts until the early twentieth century.
Peter Mundy
Peter Mundy ( fl. 1597 – 1667) was a seventeenth-century British factor, merchant trader, traveller and writer. He was the first Briton to record, in his ''Itinerarium Mundi'' ('Itinerary of the World'), tasting '' Chaa'' (tea) in China and trav ...
refers in 1656 to St Matthew Island when writing about Ascension, with some words changed to be more understandable in brackets:
Captain
James Cook
James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean an ...
tried but failed to find St. Matthew in 1775 during his
second voyage
The second (symbol: s) is the unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally to 60 seconds eac ...
.
Both Peter Leonard (1833) and
H.C. Adams (1883) suggest that the error may have arisen from a confusion with
Annobón Island, which lies at the same
latitude but at 5°38′E
longitude.
Gallery
File:Theatrum Orbis Terrarum - Africae Tabula Nova.jpg, Ortelius' 1570 "Africae Tabula Nova" showing "S. Matheo"
File:Africa 1593, Gerard de Jode (3805116-recto).jpg, Gerard de Jode's 1593 map showing "I.de S.Matheus"
File:Africa 1595, Gerardus Mercator (3797082-recto).jpg, Gerardus Mercator's 1595 map from the ''Atlas sive Cosmographicae meditationes de fabrica mvndi et fabricati figvra'' showing "S. Matheo"
File:West Afrika by Jan Huygen van Linschoten 1596.jpg, Jan Huygen van Linschoten's 1596 map showing "I. de S. Matheus"
File:Rennel map 1799.png, James Rennel's 1799 map showing "S. Matthew"
File:Africamap1812.jpg, Arrowsmith and Lewis 1812 map showing "St. Mathew"
File:1827 Finley Map of Africa - Geographicus - Africa-finley-1827.jpg, 1827 map by Anthony Finley showing "S. Matthew"
File:Afrika 1828.JPG, 1828 German map showing "St. Mathäus"
File:29 of 'Atlas' (11012288974).jpg, 1836 Atlas showing "I. St. Matthew"
See also
*
Saxemberg Island
Saxemberg or Saxemburg Island was a phantom island believed to have existed in the South Atlantic. It appeared intermittently on charts between the 17th and the 19th centuries.
Saxemberg was reportedly discovered by Netherlands, Dutch seafarer J ...
*
Thompson Island (South Atlantic)
References
External links
1829 French map showing "I. S. Mathieu"Thomas Bradford's 1835 map showing "St Mattheus"
Phantom islands of the Atlantic Ocean
Islands of the South Atlantic Ocean
{{Ascension-geo-stub