Blunt's chart of Charleston Harbour, 1822
Edmund March Blunt, born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1770, was a navigator, writer, and publisher of nautical works. Considered one of America's first hydrographers, Blunt published Blunt's Coastal Pilot, later known as The American Coast Pilot, in 1796.
Blunt's Coastal Pilot, full of detailed charts and writings, became the default companion to many seafaring men traveling America's Atlantic coastline in the 19th century.
Here, in the "Preface" to the tenth edition (March, 1822) of The American Coast Pilot, Blunt stresses the importance of one's knowledge of the coast.
"Of the many improvements which the science of navigation has been continually receiving, in the lapse of centuries, since the invention of the compass, perhaps there is not one embracing a greater scope of practical utility, than an accurate description of the marine boundaries of a country."
Blunt continues with a descriptive account of America's coastline, further justifying the need for a deeper and more reliable source of navigational knowledge.
"The knowledge of such dangers, important as it is to seamen generally, is particularly so, to those of the United States. Navigating waters filled with sand banks, that have been formed by the Gulf Stream, and by the mighty rivers which discharge themselves from the eastern coast of the North American continent, they require no ordinary skill and knowledge to avoid those extensive and intricate shoals that line our shores, rendered still more dangerous by rapid currents and eddies peculiar to the American seas, and by a strong current running counter to the Gulf Stream, from the Bank of Newfoundland to Cape Florida. The boisterous and variable weather, so common in this climate, also tends to increase the difficulties and dangers of our coasting trade."