Red Sea And Gulf Of Aden Pilot Comprising The Suez Canal, The Gulfs Of Suez And Aqaba, The Red Sea, The Gulf Of Aden, The South-East Coast Of Rabaia From Ras Baghashwa To Ras Al Hadd, The Coast Of Africa From Ras Asir To Ras Hafun, Socotra And Its Adjacent Islands. Eighth Edition, 1932. Arabian Peninsula.

Eighth edition; this extremely uncommon and typically comprehensive pilot was prepared by the highly experienced hydrographer Commander Francis N. Shearme RN, co-editor of the Admiralty Manual of Navigation (1922); an online search identifies copies at just six institutional libraries: British Library, National Maritime Museum, and Scotland only in UK, and Chicago, UN Geneva, and Melbourne worldwide. Francis Noel Shearme (1884-1968), born in Plymouth, served on HMS Royal Oak during the Battle of Jutland and compiled numerous pilots for the Hydrographic Department of the Admiralty, including those for the North Sea (1935), Channel (1939), West Indies (1941), Australia (1950), and Malacca Strait (1958). The appendices to this edition of the Red Sea pilot include details of dry docks, patent slips, principal ports and their depths, meteorological tables, and magnetic observation spots; it followed the seventh edition of 1921. Provenance: stamp at head of front free endpaper of the Marineobservatorium Bücherei ("Naval Observatory Library"), neat accession date of 30 March 1938, and a few pencilled marginal notes in German. Octavo. Original red pebble-grain cloth over heavy stock card boards, spine and front cover lettered in black, red speckled edges. Numerous half-tone plates of coastal profiles, and line drawings in the text. Spine variably sunned, only minor shelf wear. A very good copy of a rather vulnerable publication.