Thomas Shaw (divine and traveller)

While in north Africa he traveled through Algiers, Tunisia, Syria, Egypt, and Arabia in the first half of the eighteenth century.

During his travels he made crude daily geodetic surveys from which he draws maps attached to his work.

In fact, apart from the spy mission in the vicinity of Algiers led by the engineer Vincent-Yves Boutin in 1808, it seems that the French had very little information on Algeria more recent than that of Shaw.

Also, the geographical and "sociological" part of his 1830 edition named Historical, statistical and topographical facts on the State of Algiers, and was used of the expeditionary army of Africa.

Richard Pococke commented unfavourably on parts of the work in his Description of the East (1745), and Shaw published two supplements in vindication, which were incorporated in the edition of 1757.