The Montreal Gazette also covers the news that three maps were stolen from the British Library (see previous entry). The Gazette article focuses on a map of particular significance to Canadian history — a 1578 map of Martin Frobisher’s discoveries in northern Canada — and, significantly, fingers Forbes Smiley as a “prime suspect” in the thefts.

The FBI then issued an alert to map libraries around the world [after Smiley’s arrest for the Yale University thefts], advising curators to check their collections and determine whether the accused had recently visited their institutions.

That’s when the British Library first noticed the missing Frobisher map and the two other apparent thefts. Peter Barber, head of the library’s cartography section, recently told the Hartford Courant that records show Smiley visited the library twice in the past 18 months and examined at least two of the books.

Developing, as they say. Earlier coverage of the Forbes Smiley case and other map theft news can be found in my Map Thefts category archive.