The most accurate chart of the Canary Islands published in the nineteenth century.

The charts marks soundings, hazards of the sea, and the position of lighthouses (highlighted in red and yellow), with principal ports and rivers marked. Above the main chart are insets and profiles of Madiera, Porto Santo, The Road of Funchal, the Roadstead of Santa-Cruz, and Great Salvage

Vice-Admiral Alexander Thomas (1752-1863) a talented surveyor was, in 1835, tasked with measuring the meridian arc length to the Cape Verde Islands. He ended up surveying much of the west coast of Africa, and the Canary Islands. On completion of the charting of the Canary Islands in 1838, the Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society could remark of the survey that:

"This tedious undertaking is drawing to a close, and will then be of equal utility to the fair traders and the anti-slavery cruisers. It is fortunately in the hands of such a man as Captain Vidal, R.N., who has steadily devoted himself during a long period of ill-health, to complete this unpopular work, and to connect with it a minute examination of the Canary Islands"

Richard Holmes Laurie (1777-1858) was the last member of the great eighteenth century chart and map publishers Laurie and Whittle.

The foundation of the partnership of Robert Laurie (1755–1836) and James Whittle (1757–1818) was the existing stock of Robert Sayer's printing plates, both for maps and atlases and also decorative prints. Laurie had originally apprenticed to Robert Sayer in 1770, and made free in 1777. He was a skilled artist, who exhibited at the Society of Artists from 1770, winning a silver palette for a drawing in 1770, and he was also an accomplished engraver of mezzotint portraits and produced views and other decorative items. In about 1792 he returned to the Sayer business and took it over from the ailing Sayer in 1794. Whittle was apprenticed into the Needlemakers' Company, evidently made free by 1792, and joined with Laurie to take over the Sayer business in 1794.

Laurie retired in 1812. His son Richard Holmes Laurie replaced him in the partnership and, eventually, took over the firm after Whittle's death in 1818. Presumably under the influence of Richard Holmes Laurie, the partnership became noted as chartmakers and publishers. Upon his death the business was acquired from his daughters by his principal engraver Alexander George Findlay, and continued after his death in 1875 by his nephews Daniel and William Kettle. In 1904, the company merged with the Imray firm to become, Imray, Laurie, Norie and Wilson.