1873 British Map - "The Islands of Japan," by James Wyld

The following map entitled "The Islands of Japan" was made in 1873 by James Wyld, the Geographer to the British Queen. The title of the map is "The Islands of Japan." (SOURCE)

The reason I am posting the map is that it was mentioned in an 1876 letter written by Watanabe Kouki (渡辺洪基), who was Director of the Bureau of Documents in Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the time. Mr. Watanabe was researching the location of Dagelet Island, which was the Western name for Korea's Ulleungdo Island, and he mentioned this map as an example of Western maps that showed Dagelet Island at the coordinates 37 degrees 25 minutes N. latitude and 130 degrees 56 minutes E. longitude.

In his letter, which was entitled "Concerning Matsushima 2," Mr. Watanabe referred to the map in the following way:

英女王地理家ゼイムスウイルドノ日本朝鮮図
"Map of Japan and Korea," by James Wyld, Geographer to the British Queen

The map shows the island of Ulleungdo labeled as "Matsusima / I. Dagelet" and Liancourt Rocks labeled as "Hornet I.s." It also shows Argonaut Island, which was a non-existent island that came about after the mismapping of Ulleungdo by the British Navy in 1789. It is labeled as "Argonaut I. 1789" on the map. Also, Ulleungdo's neighboring island of Jukdo (2 km offshore) is labeled "Boussole Rk," and a rocky islet at the southern tip of Ulleungdo is labeled "Seal I."

Traditionally, the name "Matsushima" or "Oki's Matsushima" was used by the Japanese to refer to Liancourt Rocks, which Mr. Watanabe believed were Japanese territory, but he suspected that the name "Matsushima" was also being used to refer to Ulleungdo, as Mr. Wyld's 1873 map seems to show. In 1880, the Japanese government finally sent a survey ship to Ulleungdo, where it confirmed that the Matsushima on Western maps was, in fact, Ulleungdo.