The primary subject of this sheet of coastal profiles is the northwest American coast, fragments of which it presents as synecdoches for the whole. Before James Cook's voyages of discovery, naval draughtsmen created coastal, island, or harbour profiles only in broad outline, primarily as an aid to navigation (Richardson 69).
“Port Dick, near Cook’s Inlet” [or “Port Dick, with a fleet of Indian canoes,” as it is described in “A List of the Plates”] is taken from the third volume of George Vancouver’s A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and Round the World (1798), where it faces page 150. Drawn by William Alexander from an original sketch by H.
In late-18th and early-19th century Britain, popular interest in "scenes" that exceed or lie beyond the everyday world was heightened by factors such as the emergence of London as Europe's first world-city; James Cook's and George Vancouver's voyages of discovery, which completed in outline the modern map of the globe; and improvements in transport and communication technologies, which brought the distant into the orbit of the near. The consequent appetite for large scenes, evident in the cult of the sublime, was met in part by new virtual-reality technologies—most notably the Eidophusikon, Panorama, Moving Panorama, and Diorama—and an entertainment industry based on them.
This image depicts the failure of harmony in the marriage previously represented (in its partner print) as a harmonious courtship. Harmony is used as a visual pun in each print to convey first, the appealing fantasy of romance, and then the harsh reality of a marriage originating in such a fantasy.
This image depicts courtship as typically conceived by the Romantic imagination, as a moment of finding or establishing figurative harmony; such a moment or situation was dependent on the prior, elegant education of young ladies in certain, socially-mediating arts.
This image visually depicts the working of sound using the Aeolian harp—an instrument significant to the Romantic imagination—as the primary model. The engraving also includes several scientific diagrams indicating how the harp might function.
This scientific diagrams depicts "vibrations in solid bodies," including rods and plates. In the image, Herschel presents readers with another set of experiments that helps them conceptualize the movement of sound through space, again depending on the visual. Figures 36-41 involve the vibrations of a rod either resting against a wall or free.
This image depicts an octave as rendered differently by each temperament. Young particularly emphasizes circumference Y, which represents the system that Young found most effective: twelve-tone equal temperament. The image depicts an octave and variant systems of tuning, or "temperament." The octave is represented by the circumference of the circle.
Using mathematical techniques, this image visually depicts aural phenomena: the sound waves produced by playing an octave. The image uses scientific diagrams to depict sound waves and vibrational patterns. The specific phenomena depicted by the various figures and the import of these depictions are discussed at length below.
