It's encouraging that someone is keeping an open mind! I feel that Rainbow Island is more likely drawn from the Skeleton Island Map rather than the other way round. Wilkins did become aware of Rainbow Island and I became aware of the book simply because Wilkins did (and Cryptid will now doubtless call me a liar because he maintains that only he could ever have dug out this information).
However, knowing far more about the actual sequence of events and the true source of both the maps and the instruction sets, I completely discounted Rainbow Island, it’s likely a copy and thus a side issue, though I didn’t discount Tracy and Shiel, particularly the latter. This was part of what I’d been investigating, but keeping quiet about until I had something concrete. I never got to that point and recently passed on all my material and findings to someone else to follow up.
You have been a member of this forum since 2016. In all that time (past decade), you never once mentioned
Rainbow Island/Louis Tracy,
until after reading and commenting in this thread. Furthermore, between 2013 and 2023 you published four books on the Kidd-Palmer maps, over 1,000 pages in total, with bibliographies. You never once mentioned RI/Tracy; not even a single reference to any of Tracy's books in your bibliographies. Suffice to say, I think any reasonable reader will doubt your claim you knew of RI/Tracy before I created this thread and it seems clear to me you want to take credit for my find. I think Bocaj already
summed it up best:
I can understand very much Cryptid's point and frankly someone coming out after somebodies else discovery claiming to have known all along without any evidence smells at least extremely bad.
Aside from the total absence of evidence in your four books and over 400 forum comments (plus entire digital footprint for that matter [none of your Reddit posts I found mention RI]) that you knew of RI/Tracy before this thread; there is the fact many of your posts on this forum, going back years, as well as recent, contradict your unsubstantiated claim you knew of Rainbow Island before me. To provide an example, the Skeleton Map (1933) contains the words "TURTLES" (on the south coast/beach of the island), while the RI map (1903) "TURTLE BEACH" (in the exact same position on the map) yet it is clear from your previous comments here you were oblivious to the latter.
In contrast, let's look at what you have instead
claimed about TURTLES on this forum:
This cannot actually be the case, so one might suppose that the island in Nova Scotia had the same name as an island in the Caribbean. It was suggested above that the ‘20' of ‘20 Turtles’ is not in fact a qualifier, so the map merely suggests that there are turtles, not how many of them - which in any event would be strange.
However, in the context of the Fredea article, this could be the name of an island in the West Indies, that is, Tortuga or Tortue. This was named for the silhouette which resembles a sea turtle swimming.
View attachment 2007257
Above right is Oak Island as such a silhouette, and at left is an outline of Oak Island as it appears on an 18th century printed chart - again, much like a turtle but in plan. On this basis, might Oak Island once have been known as Turtle Island, Tortuga or Tortue?
You were bizarrely arguing that TURTLES on the Skeleton Map is related to Oak Island by the outline shape of the island on a 18th century map; claimed "Tortuga, Tortue [Turtle Island]" was a former name of Oak Island (idle speculation at best; there is no evidence whatsoever that Oak Island was ever named these), and were preposterously linking "20" before the word TURTLES on the Skeleton Map to "
the astrological sign of the Ram".
To point out the obvious, this is all incorrect, way off... Nevertheless, you repeated these dubious claims in your book
The Oak Island Concealment on page 86 (2023) and in at least one forum
comment in 2025.
How exactly do you explain this or can you now reconcile it with the RI map? Your own posts on this forum and your four books strongly suggest at the very least you were oblivious to the RI map. How can you simultaneously claim to have known about the RI map but argue for a different source for TURTLES (even though the word TURTLE in exact same position, is written on the Rainbow Island map?). Turtle beach is the name the main protagonists in Tracy's novel (1903) gave to the beach on the southern cost of the island: "the extensive stretch of sand on the south-east, with its guard of broken reefs, was at once dubbed Turtle Beach when Jenks discovered that an immense number of green turtles were paying their spring visit to the island to bury their eggs in the sand." There are more holes in your story than Swiss cheese. To provide another example of a glaring inconsistency, you
repeatedly claimed the outline of the Kidd-Palmer maps was copied from a map of Juan Fernandez Island and this unfounded claim also appears in your 2023 book (page 33):
It is apparent from your book and earlier forum comments that you had no knowledge of the RI map before me, otherwise, why would you have made these false claims about Juan Fernandez being the outline of the island on the Kidd-Palmer maps? The outline of the island depicted on the Kidd-Palmer maps was not based on/copied from a map of Juan Fernandez Island, but the RI map:
Image credit (for this overlay of the Skeleton Map and Rainbow Island map): Bocaj.
I find it puzzling that you would claim in the first place that the drawer of the Coral Island and Skeleton Map used outlines of Juan Fernandez, when they are not even a close match. I mean look at the northern coast of the JF map in your 2023 book, which is zig-zagged, then compare it to the rather smooth coastlines on the Coral/Skeleton Maps that are the shape of a concave side of a bow (note that this is, precisely how Tracy
describes RI). Did you just ignore these profound differences, hoping no one would point them out? Anyway, there remains a straightforward but damning question: if you knew about RI why on earth have you been incorrectly claiming for years in your books and (fairly recently) on this forum that the outline of the island on the Kidd-Palmer maps, was Juan Fernandez Island?
Even more damning on page 138 of your 2023 book, it is clear you were completely unaware of the RI map since you argue "China Sea" was "
mistakenly added" to the Skeleton Map (you were evidently oblivious China Sea appears on RI [there was no "mistake" that someone randomly added China Sea since it was copied]) and you oddly ponder whether the lagoon on the northern coast of the maps was in fact a named place on Oak Island south of the swamp (oblivious of the lagoon on RI). Nothing to do with Oak Island. In reality, "China Sea" from the Skeleton Map was copied from the Rainbow Island map, as was the lagoon. Had you actual access to the RI map, you would have known this. I think most forum members would agree with me, given the extent of these huge inconsistencies and you being so wide of the mark, it is cringeworthy if you want to keep pretending you knew of the RI map before reading this thread and copying my research (without having the courtesy to give me credit), but by all means continue digging a bigger hole for yourself.
However, Cryptid will doubtless declare that he knows for a fact that Wilkins knew nothing about Rainbow Island because, although he writes 9.16 N in the text, he does not write 113.80 E, but 130.80 E. In any event, Wilkins was fully aware that a ‘J.S.’ was somehow associated with the island at this lat-long (that is, maybe the individual from whom Kidd obtained the maps - Wilkins didn't believe that they were originally Kidd's).
I own all of Harold T. Wilkins' published books and have a large digital collection of his articles. There is not a single mention of Louis Tracy or
Rainbow Island in any of them (I have checked); none of his bibliographies reference Tracy's literature. Again, there is an absence of evidence for your claims. Concerning Wilkins' private correspondence, I have managed to gain access to letters he sent to publishers (after contacting various journals, magazines and books he published). No mention of RI/Tracy in these either; most notably, Wilkins did not mention RI/Tracy during his correspondence with the [1937] US publisher of
Captain Kidd and His Skeleton Island (Liverlight). This argument from silence is compelling evidence alone he did not know of RI because the US version was the expanded edition of his main book (first published in UK) on the Kidd-Palmer maps. Surely if he knew of the Rainbow Island map in connection to the Skeleton Map he would have mentioned it in his book or correspondence with publisher. Unfortunately, it was not possible to dig up anything from Cassell & Co., since their archives were destroyed by a German bomb during WW2.
The snippet of text from an unpublished manuscript of Wilkins you posted does not remotely substantiate anything you claimed. Wilkins does not mention Tracy or
Rainbow Island in the snippet. If you arguing Wilkins knew of the tin can (canister) diagram/map from Tracy (1903) because he wrote the longitude 130.80 E (you claim he was somehow modifying 113.80 E from the tin can to catch a plagiarist out), that is wild speculation nor does it make sense since he is not even talking about the tin can map but the Skeleton Map. Note that Wilkins inaccurately translated/described things not only on the maps but the Yunnan Parchment. If you read his 1947 booklet, you will find he got the translation of the parchment quite wrong. None of this means he was trying to catch out plagiarists. When describing the Kidd-Palmer maps and parchment he was relying on his faulty memory because he only saw these items in person a few times when visiting Palmer and wrote about them years later.
I’m not altogether sure where Wilkins got his ‘Death Valley’, as I have no proof that he saw the published map of Rainbow Island itself, just the ‘canister’ image (maybe because of the version of the book he got hold of?) In a novel concerning Kidd, Wilkins did write about ‘Yunnan Island’, 'Death Valley' and the 'Stakes in Lake' taken from the (claimed) British Museum Skeleton Map assessment.
Where is the evidence Wilkins knew of the tin canister diagram/map with the latitude and longitude (9.16 N; 113.80 E)? There is strong evidence
against this (see above). Why did Wilkins not mention this in a single of his publications or private correspondence with publishers? It would be easy to prove me wrong - post the unpublished manuscript where Wilkins explicitly mentions the canister map or he mentions,
Rainbow Island (1903) or heck, once mentions Louis Tracy's name. I won't hold my breath.
As usual, I feel that there’s far too much here of deciding what the answer is, because that’s what people want it to be, rather than working towards potential answers by considering alternatives derived from ALL of the potential evidence. I'd also note that Cryptid's writing a paper declaring that he knows for a fact that the Skeleton Map derives from a fake Rainbow Island map was not only premature but truly sticking his neck out unnecessarily. But, heck, what do I know about the subject.
The paper/monograph I am writing will be open-access meaning free to read. I have proof the Kidd-Palmer maps were copied from the RI map but you will have to wait for the publication to see this, although I already presented
evidence in this thread. In contrast, you have self-published four books on the Kidd-Palmer maps; the latest priced at a costly £11.99 for a slim book ~150 pages. Even worse, on the first page you admit it was "part previously published" in 2013 (under another title you self-published). It is primarily a duplicate of a book you self-published a decade earlier. £11.99 for only ~150 pages, adding almost no new content or anything interesting on the maps, yet you have the nerve to criticise me for writing and publishing a paper when it is free to read and presents new research. About sums you up.
