Chart of George’s Shoal & Bank, Surveyed by Charles Wilkes (1798-1877), Lieut. Commandant. (Navy Department) 1837. In U.S. Brig Porpoise, Schooners Maria & Hadassah. By order of the Hon. Mahlon Dickerson, Secretary of the Navy. Published under the direction of the Navy Commissioners. 1837. Drawn by J. Alden and W. May. Engraved by S. Stiles, Sherman & Smith, New-York. Illustrated.  

Large folding map printed on sixteen separate squares of paper, mounted together on linen backing, evenly toned, 44 1/2 x 40 in.

Wilkes was a controversial figure whose shipboard behavior some consider Melville's model for Captain Ahab. During the 1830s, he was head of the Department of Charts and Instruments for the American Navy, and produced accurate and reliable data for many detailed marine charts. He also explored the South Seas, the west coast of North America, and thereby circumnavigated the globe under sail, logging 87,000 miles at sea, although he was court-martialed when he returned. 

Guthorn p.47; P-Maps 758; Claussen & Friis 233.

Georges Bank (formerly known as St. Georges Bank) is a large elevated area of the sea floor between Cape Cod, Massachusetts(United States), and Cape Sable Island, Nova Scotia (Canada). It separates the Gulf of Maine from the Atlantic Ocean.

The origin of its name is obscure. The 1610 Velasco map, prepared for King James I of England, used the name "S. Georges Banck", a common practice when the name of the English patron saint, St. George, was sprinkled around the English-colonized world. By the 1850s, it was known simply as Georges Bank.