208 TIMOTHY PONT 



Timothy Pont was born about 1565, the elder son 

 of the reformer Robert Pont (1524-1606), who himself 

 was no ordinary minister of the Presbyterian Church 

 of Scotland, but became Provost of Trinity College, 

 Edinburgh, was thrice Moderator of the General 

 Assembly, and, in addition, achieved unique distinction 

 among the reformed clergy in being appointed by the 

 Regent Mar a judge of the Court of Session. His 

 son Timothy matriculated at St. Leonard's College of 

 St. Andrews in 1580, graduating as M.A. in 1584. He 

 had been educated for the Church, but his natural bent 

 was for mathematics rather than for divinity. How- 

 beit, in 1601 he was appointed minister of Dunnet, the 

 northernmost parish of the Scottish mainland ; but at 

 some time between 1610 and 1614 he resigned the 

 living in order to apply his full energy to the project he 

 had conceived of executing an atlas of Scotland. It 

 was most unusual in those days for a poor student to 

 embark upon any great enterprise without obtaining 

 the support of a patron ; but Pont could secure no such 

 aid. Robert Gordon of Straloch, who, many years after 

 Font's death, undertook the preparation of his maps 

 and manuscripts for publication in Blaeu's monumental 

 atlas of the world, states sympathetically that he 

 Pont ' being of slender means and with no Maecenas 

 to help him, took the whole task [of a survey of 

 Scotland] upon himself before his fortieth year.' It is 

 not known in what year he began the work. Probably 

 he finished the survey of much of the northern High- 

 lands and Islands during his incumbency of Dunnet ; 

 otherwise it seems impossible that he could accomplish 



