Commentary: Mid-Argyll, From Dunoon to Inverary and Loch Awe

Pont 14: Mid-Argyll, From Dunoon to Inverary and Loch Awe

There are two different symbols used by Pont for settlements on this sheet. Circular symbols are used in the east and south of the map, but rectangles to the south of Loch Awe and in the west. It is probable that Pont drew these two parts of the map at different times. This would also account for the fact that northeast of Loch Streyn (Loch Striven) Pont has left instructions for the two areas to be brought together: This 3 m.[iles] moir neir and put these hard togither.
On the western margin of the map (middle left) there is a map in faint ink of the area surrounding Inveraray Castle. Here Pont has used rectangular settlement symbols rather than the circular symbols he employed elsewhere.
Inveraray Castle itself was in the possession of the Earl of Argyll when Pont visited it. The castle seen at Inveraray today was built in the 18th century and on a different site.
In the Firth of Clyde (centre bottom) a note says:

This map is overlapped by a small part of Pont 12 (front), and by Pont 16 and 17.
Manuscript maps by Robert Gordon which are relevant are sheets: 4, 6, 48 and 49. However, these contain little information in comparison with Pont's map.
Four printed maps by Blaeu overlap this area: Lorna, Aebudae Insulae, Braid-Allaban, and Knapdalia. Again, these maps yield little additional information.

Maps by Blaeu and Gordon can be accessed via
the National Library of Scotland's Digital Library.

Text derived in part from Jeffrey C. Stone's The Pont Manuscript Maps of Scotland, published by Map Collector Publications Ltd in 1989.