Antique Maps ~ David Bannister, Rare Maps, Posters, Prints

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Chapter 20

MAPS OF THE WORLD & THE CONTINENTS

In the various chapters in which we have outlined the history of map production in Western European countries, we have set out in some detail the work of the better known national cartographers and publishers. It is true to say that practically all the general atlases listed included maps of the world, the continents and their principal regions and it would be tedious now to repeat that detail; this chapter therefore only seeks to draw attention to the more interesting maps of this kind. Many of the fifteenth-and sixteenth-century maps in these categories are, of course, unique copies or at best are only available in the great libraries or collections but nevertheless early maps may still be found by the assiduous collector.

THE WORLD

Elsewhere we have touched upon the historical changes wrought by Henry the Navigator and the Portuguese and Spanish adventurers who eventually found their way to the Orient and the New World. We have noted that few of the charts and maps made during, or even after, their voyages have survived for, apart from being working documents, vulnerable to day-to-day wear, their manuscripts were reproduced only on a very limited scale, closely controlled by Portuguese and Spanish officialdom. In consequence it fell to the Italians, Germans, Dutch and other European cartographers to prepare and produce printed maps in any quantity.

By the beginning of the seventeenth century the world was assuming a more recognizable shape. True, until 1605-06 firm knowledge of Australia was lacking and the voyages of the later explorers, Tasman, Dampier, Cook, Flinders and others, were still far ahead but, during the century, enthusiasm for the search for a North East or North West passage waned, the Indies and the Spice Islands became reality rather than myth and fleets of trading vessels took over the sea routes opened up by the early explorers. In the Americas, colonists were making a new life but were still dependent on regular sea traffic for their lifeline with Europe. Around the year 1700 aids to navigation, such as Halley's magnetic and meteorological charts, Cassihi's methods of determining longitude and, later, Harrison's chronometer permitted ever more detailed and accurate surveys. World maps naturally reflected these changes and there is endless scope for the collector with special interests to make his own selection from the material available.

World maps of the sixteenth century are not common but the following are available from time to time: Waldseemuller (1513-41), Peter Apian (1520 onwards), Bordone (1528-c. 1565), Grynaeus (1532 onwards) Munster (1540-44 and many later editions), Ortelius (1570-1612), Plancius (1590-96 and later editions), de Jode (1593), Mercator (1595) and the later Hondius/Jansson editions well into the next century.

From the first part of the seventeenth century there are magnificent maps by the Blaeu family (1606 onwards), van den Keere (1608), Jansson (1626), Speed (1627), N. Visscher (1639) and, in the second half, the still rare maps by Sanson (1651), Duval (1660), Jaillot (1668), de Wit (1680), Morden (1680), Dankerts (1689), van Keulen (1682), Coronelli (1695), Delisle (1700), Wells (1700); all these and others were usually issued in a number of editions and with many variants.

As we have already seen the first half of the eighteenth century was dominated by the French cartographers, Delisle,de Vaugondy, d'Anville, le Rouge, but at the same time the Dutch publishers van der Aa, R. and J. Ottens, the Mortier family, and Covens and Mortier published very large atlases made up of maps either by their predecessors or by noted cartographers of the day. To these the German map trade, revitalized by Homann, added its quota with maps by Homann himself and his successors and by Seutter, Weigel and Lotter; and finally the English map publishers, Kitchin, Faden, Sayer and Bennett, Laurie and Whittle, Cary, Arrowsmith and the Wylds took over with atlases of every type, most of them containing the latest world maps.

For those collectors who have a special interest in World Maps we can do no better than refer them to The Mapping of the World by Rodney W. Shirley.

Plate: MARTIN WALDSEEMULLER World Map. This version of the Ptolemaic World Map was published in Waldseemuller's Geographia in the 1525, 1535 and 1541 editions.

THE AMERICAS

No account of cartography on a world scale would be complete without considering in some detail not only maps of the New World as a whole but also the many splendid regional maps, especially of the North American continent, which illustrate its history; in any case, the links between the Old and New Worlds are so close that it is hardly possible to consider one without the other.

For fifty years or so after the first voyage by Columbus the Spaniards concentrated on Central America, Peru and the Caribbean, the emphasis being on conquest and plunder rather than settlement in any peaceful sense. But that phase passed; after a number of abortive colonizing expeditions in the middle of the 1505 and in the face of intense rivalry from the French and British, the Spanish succeeded, in 1565, in establishing a permanent colony at St Augustine in Florida where they retained their hold until 1819 when Florida was ceded to the United States. Otherwise their main sphere of interest, inspired originally by their search for the mythical Seven Cities of Cibola but in later years based more solidly on Jesuit, Dominican and Franciscan missions, continued to lie around the Gulf of Mexico and in the American South West.

Plate: RUMOLD MERCATOR Orbis Terrac Conipendiosa Descri~tio. A famous world map based on Gerard Mercator's map of 1569. is dated 1587 and was probably issued as a separate sheet map before appearing in the Mercator Atlas in 1595.

Plate: JOHN SPEED A New and Accurate Map of the World. Published from 1617 to 1676 in Speed's Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World, the first World Atlas produced by an Englishman. This map illustrates the misconception of California as an island.

Plate: MARTIN WALDSEEMULLER/FRISIUS Orbis Typis Universalis Strassburg (1522)1525. A famous world map by Frisius derived from Waldseemuller's wall map of 1516. Probably the earliest map mentioning the name 'America' which is available to collectors.

Plate: MARTIN WALDSEEMULLER Ocearn Occidenta/is seu Terre Nove Strassburg (1 522) 1525. This map of the Atlantic and the New World was based on a similar map in the 15 13 edition of Waldseemuller's Geographia but included additional information giving credit to Columbus for discovering America. Sometimes known as the 'Admiral's Map'.

Lower California and parts of Arizona were colonized in the seventeenth century but, in the face of Indian tribal resistance, their efforts were sporadic and never wholly successful, even under the inspiration of Father Kino who, as an explorer, finally disposed of the idea that California was an island. As late as 1766-68 the last Spanish exploratory expedition through New Mexico was beset with difficulties and achieved no lasting benefits.

Within a few years of Columbus's first landfall, England had staked a claim directly on the American mainland by virtue of John Cabot's voyage to Newfoundland in 1497. At the time there was no successful follow-up to Cabot's voyage but, in later years, English interest in the Caribbean was, of course, very much alive; Hawkins, Drake, Raleigh and Hakluyt saw to that and after Drake's world voyage the urge to set up colonies in the New World was not be to denied. As is well known, the first English attempt at settlement, directed by Raleigh in 1585-86 on the coast of Carolina, failed, but an account of the expedition published soon afterwards by Thomas Hariot, illustrated by John White, included a map of Virginia. This was said to be the inspiration for Theodore de Bry's major work, the Grands Voyages (1590) in which the map of Virginia and many others appeared. That was followed soon afterwards by Wytfliet's Descriptionis Ptolemaicae augmentum, the first printed atlas to consist entirely of maps of America. The next century saw the second English attempt at colonization, organized more successfully this time by the Virginia Company (1606) under the governorship of Captain John Smith, whose famous map of Virginia, published at Oxford in 1612, was the precursor of a whole series of beautiful maps of the Eastern States. Even though the settlement was successful, English exploration inland was on a limited scale. The colonists needed time to break in their new lands and attune themselves to the unaccustomed climate and conditions but by the end of the century the realization of the vastness and resources of the Continent on which they had established themselves had become clearer as pioneer traders and explorers penetrated the interior.

Plate: ABRAHAM ORTELIUS Amercae sive Novi Orbis Nova Description. This Ortelius map is regarded by many as the most beautiful map of the Western Hemisphere produced in the sixteenth century. First published in 1570, the above example is from an edition dated 1587 (or later) printed from a re-engraved plate which corrects the coastal outline of South America and includes the Solomon Islands.

The French in the north were more adventurous; their interest in a North West Passage had been roused in the first decades of the sixteenth century by Breton fishermen who crossed the Atlantic regularly to the fishing banks off Nova Scotia, and by Giovanni da Verrazano (1523) with his hints of a passage in the region of Pamlico Sound or Chesapeake Bay, for long known as the Sea of Verrazano. A few years later Jacques Cartier, in his three voyages between 1534 and 1541, explored the St Lawrence and staked France,s claim to Quebec and New France. After the long interval of some sixty years caused by the internecine troubles in France itself, Samuel de Champlain was dispatched in 1603 to survey the areas already reached by Cartier with a view to future colonization. After completing his first surveys, he devoted thirty years to fostering good relations with the Indians, developing the fur trade and exploring the complex river systems and the Great Lakes. His map of 1632 was the first to show all the lakes except Michigan. While the English remained in the coastal belt, de Champlain's successors, Louis Joliet and La Salle, penetrated still further into the interior and in 1682 Rene' La Salle, after many false starts, sailed the length of the Mississippi, naming its watershed 'Louisiana' and claiming it for France. The British and French, of course, were not alone in their ventures across the Atlantic; the Dutch set up a trading base at New Amsterdam around 1624-26 backed by the small hinterland of New Netherlands and there were shortlived Swedish settlements, all of which eventually merged by conquest into the coastal states.

While these events were taking place in the East, map makers had to contend with a bewildering mixture of fact and fiction when attempting to draw remoter parts of the continent; the question whether California was an island or a peninsula, did the Strait of Anian really exist and, of course, the ever present problems presented by the concept of a North West Passage. The first maps of the Pacific coast, including those of Ortelius, Mercator, Wytfliet and Tatton, were not only beautifully drawn but were also remarkably accurate in showing California as a peninsula although, even at that time, legends cast doubt in some minds. It can be understood that map makers were sceptical but not entirely surprised when a captured Spanish chart drawn about 1602 indicated that it had been proved to be an island and within a very few years maps were being redrawn. Those published by Henry Briggs in 1625 and Speed in 1627 set the pace and Nicolas Sanson seems to have accepted the new outline without question. Not until about 1700, following exploration by Father Kino, an Austrian Jesuit priest, was the story disproved and cartographers could settle again for the original coastline although, even then, not without some hesitation. Herman Moll, in particular, was reluctant to accept the new version, claiming that he knew of seamen who had actually sailed round the 'island'.

Speculation about the shape of the continent far to the north of California and the stretch of water dividing it from Asia led Gastaldi, the Italian geographer, to declare that the continents were divided by the Strait of Anian, a name he took from the Kingdom of Anian which Marco Polo had placed more or less where Alaska lies. From about 1566 the name appeared on maps well into the next century and for many years it was thought that the strait could be reached from the Atlantic through the North West Passage and was therefore a vital link in the route to India. We need not dwell here on the valiant attempts to find that passage; apart from those already mentioned, the voyages of Frobisher, Davis, Baffin and Hudson were inevitably to end in failure but each added his quota to knowledge of the far north.

Questions such as these time would answer but more important were the changing relations between the colonial powers in the eastern part of the continent. The expansion of the British colonies over the Appalachians towards Ohio, the consolidation of the French hold on the Mississippi and the Seven Years War in Europe inevitably led to conflict between the British and French colonists and eventually to the fall of Quebec and the French loss of the St Lawrence and Canada (1763). Another twenty years brought the War of Independence and the end of colonial ambitions in the East and North, but it was not until 1846 that the Mexican War ended the influence of the Spanish missions in the South West.

The final stages of exploration across the North American continent turned out to be rather more prolonged and hazardous than John Farrer's blithe estimate in 1651 of a 10-day 150-mile journey would have suggested. In Canada, rivalry between the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company led to remarkable journeys by Samuel Hearne (1769-72) to the Arctic, by Alexander Mackenzie down the river bearing his name (1780-90) and a year or two later over the Rockies to the Pacific making him the first man to complete the overland journey north of Mexico. In 1805-08 Simon Fraser also reached the Pacific, having followed the Fraser river to its mouth near present-day Vancouver in an area of coastline which had already been surveyed and charted by Capt. Vancouver during a world voyage in 1791-94

In the United States, President Jefferson's purchase of Louisiana from the French in 1803 more than doubled the area of the country, adding vast new unknown territories, and almost immediately the President set about organizing exploration of the new lands. Expeditions led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark (1803-06) to the Pacific coast, by Lieut. Pike (1805-07) to the Upper Mississippi and the South West and by others too numerous to mention here provided sufficient new geographical knowledge to keep such publishers as Arrowsmith and Wyld in London, and Carey and Lea, and Tanner in New York and Philadelphia, occupied for years to come.

In South America, as in the Gulf of Mexico, the search for gold and silver was the prime objective of the first Spanish and Portuguese adventurers. The Spanish were lucky in finding Peru and the silver mines of Potosi on their side of the demarcation line laid down in the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494; the Portuguese less so in their allotted country, Brazil, which for centuries yielded them only the red dyewood (from which the name 'Brazil' derives) and sugar, although there was a shortlived 'gold rush' during the early years of the eighteenth century. On the other hand, of course, the Treaty also gave the Portuguese exclusive rights to the sea route to the Spice Islands via Africa and the Indian Ocean, thereby limiting Spanish ambitions to Central America and the Pacific Ocean. The ocean crossing to Asia proved to be too great a barrier for commercial purposes and eventually Spain sold its rights in the spice trade to the Portuguese.

Plate: THEODORE DE BRY Central and South America. One of the most splendid maps by de Bry, first published in 1592 in Frankfurt-am-Main. Although this highly decorative map was published in 1592, the west coast of South America still retains the projecting outline which Ortelius had corrected in 1587

Within very few years of the first landing of Columbus, Spanish colonists settled successfully in Peru (c. 1535), in Paraguay (c. 1537) and later in Buenos Aires (c.1580). The conquest of Peru made way for astonishing journey down the River Amazon in 1541-42 which was recorded on Sebastian Cabot's map of 1544 and for journeys across the continent to the River Plate, already discovered in 1516 and further explored by Cabot in 1526-30 when he sought a 'South West' passage to the Pacific. Before this, in 1519, Magellan, a Portuguese in the service of Spain, had sailed south-westwards and eventually through the Straits bearing his name in the hope of forestalling Portuguese claims to the Spice Islands, and although his ship, the Victoria, completed the three-year circumnavigation of the world, Magellan with many of his crew perished en route. For a century his discoveries, mapped by the cartographer Diogo Ribeiro in 1527, were accepted by the world until the voyage of the Dutchmen Cornelis Schouten and Jacob Le Maire in 1615-17 pioneered the passage round Cape Horn into the Pacific, a change very quickly reflected in maps by Blaeu, Jansson and others.

Plate: THEODORE DE BRY America sive Novus Orbis. Map of the Western Hemisphere published in 1596 in Frankfurt-am-Main. A rare and decorative map showing Terra Australis named 'Magellanica'.

Plate: CORNELIS WYTFLIET Utriusque Hemispheni Delineatio Louvain 1597-1615.The World Map (copied from Mercator's map of 1584) included in the earliest Atlas devoted entirely to America.

After the first spectacular journeys across the Continent, development and exploration in the southern part of the New World lost momentum; the Spanish colonies in particular were closed to all but officials and Roman Catholic missions and it was over zoo years before Alexander von Humboldt made his epic journeys in the rain forests of Venezuela following the course of the Orinoco and tributaries of the Amazon, a journey which was recorded in his Voyage de Humboldt Bonpland published in 1805.

The secrecy surrounding the Spanish colonies applied also to mapping, especially of the coastline and harbours, and only on rare occasions did information become available to navigators of other nations. Of great value to English navigators was a book of rutters - sea charts and sailing directions - captured by Bartholomew Sharpe about 1680, subsequently copied in manuscript form by William Hack and entitled Waggoner of the Great South Seas (c. 1682-83).

Leaving aside the very earliest manuscript maps showing America by Juan de la Cosa (1500) and Nicolay Caneiro and Cantiho (c. 1502) and the unique copy in the British Library of the Contarini/Rosselli printed map (1506), the earliest maps bearing representations of America, or the name itself, which are likely to come the way of a collector are those of Waldseemuller, Peter Apian, Grynaeus and Munster. These and other maps are listed below but it must be said that although the maps detailed have been chosen in a very general sense to illustrate the development of cartography of the New World, the volume of material available is so great that any choice must be arbitrary. Examples of the work of numerous cartographers are included but the authors are only too well aware that a number of interesting maps are not even mentioned, especially those in the period 1650-1750, e.g. by Duval, Jaillot, de Wit, Ogilby, Homann, the Visschers and many others. To a great extent the choice has been personal but perhaps more important is the fact that, with one or two exceptions, the maps noted are still available to a collector.

For the Third Edition of this book, the listing of American cartographers has been greatly expanded, and in addition to those listed below on pp.253-62, a new section on the most important indigenous map makers of the period 161 2-c. 1800 is to be found in the supplement (pp.293-300).

Plate: GERARD MERCATOR/JODOCUS HONDIUS Virginiae item et Floridae Amsterdam (1606) 1611 . One of the most important maps of the region, which influenced the work of other cartographers and publishers for the rest of the century.

A selection of Maps of the Americas

MARTIN WALDSEEMULLER

1513-41 Ptolemy's Geographia The 'Admiral's Map' showing the American seaboard and islands 1522 and later: World Map: the earliest map showing the name 'America' which is likely to be available to collectors

PETER APIAN

1524 and later. Cosmographia: containing World Map heart-shaped projection showing America

BENEDETTO BORDONE

1528 - c. 1565 Isolano containing world map on oval projection showing America

SIMON GRYNAEUS

1532 and later. World Map showing America: an extremely elegant map

SEBASTIAN MUNSTER

1540-52 Geographia
1544-1628 Cosmographia

Munster was the first to introduce separate maps of the Continents; that of the New World is particularly fanciful

GIOVANNI BATTISTA RAMUSIO 1485 - 1557

c. 1556 Bird's-eye view of Nuova Francia (Canada)

Brazil: highly decorative, showing the Rio de la Plata in the far south

DIEGO GUTIERREZ

1562 Americae sive quartae orbis partis nova et exactissima descriptio

Map of the Spanish possessions in North America

BOLOGNINO ZALTERIUS

c. 1566 North America with emphasis on Canada and showing the Strait of Anian (very rare)

ABRAHAM ORTELIUS

1570-1612 Theatrum Orbis Terrarum North and South America: particularly splendid map engraved by Frans Hogenberg. Up to 1584 South America is shown with a projecting 'hump' on the western seaboard and Tierra del Fuego is part of the imagined southern continent: California is shown as a peninsula

1589 Maris Pacifico: the Pacific Ocean showing the western seaboard with the 'hump' in South America straightened Out

THEODORE DE BRY

1590 and later. Grands Voyages and Petits Voyages Virginia, based on a manuscript map by John White who accompanied Raleigh's unsuccessful attempt at colonization in 1585 Florida, based on a map made about 1564 by a French artist, Jacques le Moyne, who accompanied a French colonizing expedition

America sive Novus Orbit

A rare and decorative map of the Western Hemisphere showing 'Terra Australis' named 'Magellanica'

Central and South America

One of the most splendid maps by de Bry, first published in 1592

CORNELIS DE JODE

1593 Polar projection showing a short route to Cathay with numerous large islands in the Arctic

Americae Pars Borealis, Florida, Baccala, Canada

One of the earliest detailed maps

Plate: HENRICUS HONDIUS Mappa Aestivarum Insularum alias Barmudas Amsterdam 1630. An elegant map of Bermuda, very similar to one published by Willem Blaeu in the same year but with different decoration.

GERARD MERCATOR

1595 Western Hemisphere with inset maps of and later Gulf of Mexico, Cuba and Haiti i6o6 Hondius/Jansson series and later Western Hemisphere with a profusion of ships, sea monsters and illustrations of natives

Virginia and Florida: one of the most beautiful of all regional maps America Meridionalis (South America)

1630 Western Hemisphere with decorative borders

JAN VAN LINSCHOTEN

1596 Itinerano and later South America: extremely decorative and fanciful map Polar Regions: showing Scandinavia, Greenland and the Strait of Anian

CORNELIS WYTFLIET

1597 Descriptiorns Ptolemaicae augmentum And LaterThe first atlas devoted to maps of America: maps of California, as a peninsula, the St Lawrence, Virginia and Quivira and Anian are especially interesting

GABRIEL TATTON

1600-16 Beautifully engraved maps of'New Spain', California and the Pacific coast, still showing California as a peninsula

Plate: JAN JANSSON Freti~magellanici. A decorative but not very accurate map of the Straits of Magellan, first published in Amsterdam in 1630. It describes the Patagonians as 'giants of vast magnitude'.

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH

1612 Virginia: famous map by the Governor of the colony, with Indian tribal names and inset figure of Powhatan - this beautiful map was widely copied for the following half century Capt. Smith also drew a map of New England, published in 1616

SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN

1612 Nouvelle France: map of the St Lawrence embellished with drawings of Indians and the flora and fauna of the area

1632 Nouvelle France: showing the extent of Champlain's explorations and including the Great Lakes (except Michigan)

HESSEL GERRITSZ / JOHANNES DE LAET

1612 Chart of Henry Hudson's ill-fated voyage into Hudson's Bay
1625 New maps of America in Nieuwe Wereldt and later by de Laet

PIETER VAN DEN KEERE

1614 and later. Americae Nova Descriptio
One of the finest maps of North and South America, the first to be decorated with borders showing costumed figures and town views, an idea much copied by later publishers

Plate: JOAN BLAEU Virginia partis australis et Floridac . . . Amsterdam 1640-72. One of the many elegantly engraved maps of the Eastern seaboard of North America published by Blaeu or Jansson which influenced other cartographers for most of the seventeenth century.

WILLEM JANSZOON BLAEU

1617 and later. Americae nova Tabula: a beautiful map with decorative borders - the first issue still shows only the Straits of Magellan but from 1618 Tierra del Fuego is shown as an island with Cape Horn, the result of the discoveries of Cornelis Schouten and Jacob La Maire

1635 and later. Nova & Belgica and Anglia Nova: one of the most beautiful and decorative maps of the time and one of the earliest to chart the coastline accurately - widely copied by later publishers. The later atlases of the Blaeu family contained a very large number of maps of the Western Hemisphere

HENRY BRIGG

1625 The North part of America: the map, engraved by R. Elstracke, based on Spanish charts which popularized the idea of California as an island, was published in Purchas his Pilgrimes by Samuel Purchas

JOHN SPEED

1627 and later. A Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the Worls'included a fine decorative map of the Western Hemisphere; a much later edition in 1676 included extra maps of Carolina, Jamaica and Barbados, New England and New York, Virginia and Maryland

Plate: JAN JANSSON America noviter de/ineata. Published about 1647, this close copy of an earlier Hondius map has interesting insets of the polar regions.

JAN JANSSON

1633 and later. From about this time, Jansson produced numerous maps of, the Americas often very similar to those of Blaeu: of particular note is his map Nova Anglia Novum Belgium et Virginia (1636) which was much copied

ROGERT DUDLEY

1646-61 Dell' Arcano del Mare The first printed sea charts of the Virginia coastline and of the western coasts and California

JOHN FARRER

1651 A Mapp of Virginia

A map of great interest combining new details about Virginia and Maryland with the fanciful idea, even then still widely held, that the South Sea was only 'ten days march over the hills'

NICOLAS SANSON

1650 A merique Septenrionale
1656 Le Canada ou Nouvelle France The first maps to show all the Great Lakes
1656 Le Nouveau Mexique et La Floride

An important map showing California as an island

PIETER GOOS

c. 1666 Nova Granada and the Island of California

Magnificent chart showing the Strait of Anian to the north

Plate: JANSSON-HONDIUS: America Septentrionalis Amsterdam (1636) c. 1666. Decorative map with many interesting notes. California clearly shown as an island, following the lead given by Henry Briggs in 1625

HUGO ALLARD

1673 New and Exact Map of All New Netherland Very decorative map with inset of New Amsterdam issued to celebrate the recapture of the town from the English

JOHN FOSTER 1648-81

1677 A Map of New-England

The first map, a woodcut, to be printed in America - it was included in an edition of a book by William Hubbard Narrative of the troubles with the Indians in New England

LOUIS DE HENNEPIN

1683 Carte de Ia Nouvelle France et de Ia Louisiane
1697-98 Map of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Father Hennepin, a Dutch missionary, was associated with the explorer, La Salle, who was the first to follow the course of the Mississippi

VINCENZO CORONELLI

1690 America Settentrionale (1688)

Splendid representation of the Great Lakes and California as an island

Plate: JOAN BLAEU Extrema Amerkac - Terra Nova - Nova Francia. A very elegant map of the Eastern approaches to Canada, published in Blaeu's Atlas Maior in 1662.

GUILLAUME DELISLE

c. 1703 Carte du Mexique et de Ia Floride . . . et des Environs de Ia Riviere de Mississipi The first printed map to show in detail the course of the Mississippi and the routes of its explorers
1718 Carte de la Louisiane et du Cours du Mississipi The most influential map of its time, widely copied by Senex, Covens and Mortier, Bellin, Homann and others

HENRI CHATELAIN

1705-20 and later. Atlas Historique Containing one of the finest maps of America (4 sheets) surrounded by Vignettes and decorative insets
1719 Carte de Ia Nouvelle France With inset plan and view of Quebec

HERMAN MOLL

1715 A New and Exact Map of the Dominions of the King of Great Britain on ye Continent of North America - the 'Beaver' map

A beautifully designed and very popular map

1720 A Map of North America Very decorative map still showing California as an island

HENRY POPPLE

1733 A Map of the British Empire in America with the French and Spanish Settlements adjacent thereto

The finest and most detailed map of its time consisting of a key map and 20 individual sheets Re-issued on one sheet by Covens and Mortier, le Rouge and others

JOHN MITCHELL

1755-91 A Map of the British and French Dominions in North America (8 sheets) A most important map re-issued many times, which was used in fixing boundary settlements in the 1782-83 treaty between Great Britain and the United States

LEWIS EVANS c. 1700-56

1755 A general Map of the Middle British Colonies in America

One of the most influential maps of the time with many derivatives: published in London and Philadelphia

DENIS DIDEROT 1713-84

c. 1770 Carte de la Californie

Composite map setting out the various stages in the mapping of California from 1604 to 1767

THOMAS JEFFERYS

1775-76 American Atlas (published by Sayer and Bennett)

The best-known atlas of its time containing large-scale maps, town plans and James Cook's charts of the St Lawrence, Newfoundland etc.

1775 West India Atlas (published by Sayer and Bennett) Maps of the Caribbean

WILLIAM FADEN

c. 1777 North American Atlas

ABEL BUELL 1742-1822

1783-84 A New and correct Map of the United States of North America

First map of the United States compiled, engraved and printed by an American: published in New Haven

J. F. W. DES BARRES

1784 and later. The Atlantic Neptune

Magnificent collection of charts of the East coasts of America with coloured plates

AARON ARROWSMITH

1795 New Discoveries in the Interior Parts of NorthAmerica
1796 Map of the United States of America

Both these maps and others were re-issued many times, being constantly revised as new information became available

CAPTAIN GEORGE VANCOUVER

1798 Survey of the Pacific coast

Charts included in A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and round the World

Plate: CHRISTOPH WEIGEL Novissima Tabula Regionis Ludovicianae Nuremberg c. 1734. Derived from the famous map of Louisiana by Delisle which was the first printed map to show Texas.

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT

1805-14 Maps in Voyage de Humboldt et Bonpland
1811-12 Atlas G6ographique et Physique du Royaume de Ia Nouvelle Espagne

JAMES WYLD

c. 1824 Map of North America (6 sheets) An important detailed map, re- issued many times to about 1856 with constant revision

TALLIS AND CO

1849-53 Illustrated Atlas of the World Contained many maps of the American Continent: published in London and subsequently in New York

Important Atlases and Maps produced by American cartographers and publishers in the period 1795-c. 1855

MATTHEW CAREY 1760-1839

1795-1809 The American Atlas

The first Atlas published in America

1796- c. 1818 General Atlas
1796-1814 American Pocket Atlas (8vo)

1817 Scripture Atlas All published in Philadelphia

JEDIDIAH MORSE 1761-1826

1795 American Geography: London further editions in 1825-27

1832-36 Family Cabinet Atlas

JOHN REID fl 1796

1796 The American Atlas Published in New York to accompany Wm Winterbotham's An Historical, Geographical Commercial and Philosophical View of the United States

ABRAHAM BRADLEY (JR) fl. 1796-1817

1796 Map of the United States exhibiting the Post Roads etc.
1797-1804 Separate maps of the Northern and Southern Parts of the United States

EDMUND MARCH BLUNT 1770-1862

GEORGE WILLIAM BLUNT 1802-78

1796 c. 1867 The American Coast Pilot
1830 Charts of the North and South Atlantic Oceans

JOHN MELISH 1771-1822

1813-1815 A Military and Topographical Atlas of the United States
1816 Map of the United States with the contiguous British and Spanish Possessions (wall map)
1822-32 Map of Pennsylvania: Philadelphia

FIELDING LUCAS (JR) 1781-c.1852

1814 A New Elegant General Atlas containing maps of each of the United States (Samuel Lewis) Baltimore:
1823 A General Atlas: Baltimore

HENRY SCHENK TANNER 1786-1858

1818-23 A New American Atlas
1823-28 A New Pocket Atlas of the United States
1828-46 New Universal Atlas
1834 The American Traveller

These and other atlases published in Philadelphia under the names Tanner and Marshall, and Tanner, Valiance, Kearny and Co.

HENRY CHARLES CAREY 1793-1879

ISAAC LEA 1792-1886

1822 A Complete historical chronological and geographical American Atlas: Philadelphia A London edition published in 1823 -
1822-28 (with S. E. Morse) Modern Atlas: Boston and New York

SIDNEY EDWARDS MORSE 1794-1871

1823 Atlas of the United States
1825 A New Universal Atlas of the World
1842-45 (with Samuel Breese) Cerographic Atlas of the UnitedStates - maps produced by means of new wax engraving technique: New Haven

ANTHONY FINLEY fi. 1824-c. 1840

1824-33 A new General Atlas: Philadelphia
1826 A New American Atlas: Philadelphia

ROBERT MILLS 1781-1855

1825-38 Atlas of the State of South Carolina: Baltimore, the first state atlas produced in the United States

DAVID H. BURR 1803-75

1829-38 An Atlas of the State of New York
1835 Universal Atlas: New York
1839 The American Atlas, exhibiting the Post Roads (etc.) of the United States Published by J. Arrowsmith, London, the maps bearing Arrowsmith's name

SAMUEL AUGUSTUS MITCHELL 1792-1868

1835 Travellers Guide through the United States (J. H. Young): Philadelphia
1839 Atlas of Outline Maps: Philadelphia
1846- c. 1890 New Universal Atlas: Philadelphia

THOMAS GAMALIEL BRADFORD 1802-87

1835 A Comprehensive Atlas: Boston and New York
1838 An illustrated atlas of the United States and the Adjacent Countries: Philadelphia
1842 A Universal illustrated Atlas: Boston

JOSEPH HUTCHINS COLTON 1800-93

GEORGE WOOLWORTH COLTON 1827-1901

1855 (J. H. Colton) WorldAtlas
1855 (G. W. Colton) Atlas of America: J. H. Colton and Co., New York The Colton family produced a large number of maps and atlases until the end of the nineteenth century

Specialist References

CUMMING, w. p., The South East in Early Maps

Although covering a particular area of America, the information given here is of the greatest interest in considering all early American maps

PHILLIPS, P. L., A List of Geographical Atlases in the Library of Congress

As nearly a complete list of maps of America (among others) that it is possible to compile

SCHWARTZ, S. I, and EHRENBERG, R. E., The Mapping of America

THEATRUM ORBIS TERRARUM NV

Wyfliet: Descriptionis Ptolemaicae Augmentum, 1597

Jefferys: The Amerkan Atlas, 1775-76

Reproductions of complete atlases

TOOLEY, R. V., The Mapping of America

This volume and Landmarks of Map Making (below) give an immense amount of detailed information on maps of America

TOOLEY, R. V., BRICKER, C. and CRONE, G. R., Landmarks of Map Making

Apart from the general historical portion of the book, the chapters on the Continents are particularly interesting and informative

AFRICA

Being part of the Mediterranean world, the northern coasts of the African continent as far as the Straits of Gibraltar and even round to the area of the Fortunate Isles (the Canaries) were reasonably well known and quite accurately mapped from ancient times. In particular, Egypt and the Nile Valley were well defined and the Nile itself was, of course, one of the rivers separating the continents in medieval T-O maps. Through Arab traders the shape of the east coast, down the Red Sea as far as the equator, was also known but detail shown in the interior faded into deserts with occasional mountain ranges and mythical rivers. The southern part of the continent, in the Ptolemaic tradition, was assumed to curve to the east to form a land-locked Indian Ocean. The voyages of the Portuguese, organized by Henry the Navigator in the fifteenth century, completely changed the picture and by the end of the century Vasco da Gama had rounded the Cape enabling cartographers to draw a quite presentable coastal outline of the whole continent, even if the interior was to remain largely unknown for the next two or three centuries.

The first separately printed map of Africa (as with the other known continents) appeared in Munster's Geographia from 1540 onwards and the first atlas devoted to Africa only was published in 1588 in Venice by Livio Sanuto, but the finest individual map of the century was that engraved on 8 sheets by Gastaldi, published in Venice in 1564. Apart from maps in sixteenth-century atlases generally there were also magnificent marine maps of 1596 by Jan van Linschoten (engraved by van Langrens) of the southern half of the continent with highly imaginative and decorative detail in the interior. In the next century there were many attractive maps including those of Mercator/Hondius (1606), Speed (1627), Blaeu (1 630), Visscher (1636), de Wit (c. 1670), all embellished with vignettes of harbours and principal towns and bordered with elaborate and colourful figures of their inhabitants, but the interior remained uncharted with the exception of that part of the continent known as Ethiopia, the name which was applied to a wide area including present-day Abyssinia. Here the legends of Prester John lingered on and, as so often happened in other remote parts of the world, the only certain knowledge of the region was provided by Jesuit missionaries. Among these was Father Geronimo Lobo (1595-1678), whose work A Voyage to Abyssinia was used as the basis for a remarkably accurate map published by a German scholar, Hiob Ludolf in 1683. Despite the formidable problems which faced them, the French cartographers G. Delisle (c. 1700-22), J. B. B. d'Anville (1727-49) and N. Bellin (1754) greatly improved the standards of mapping of the continent, improvements which were usually, although not always, maintained by Homann, Seutter, de Ia Rochette, Bowen, Faden and many others in the later years of the century.

Thereafter, in broad terms, the story of cartography in Africa in the nineteenth century is the story of the search for the sources of the great rivers, the Nile - and the lakes associated with it -, the Niger, the Congo and the Zambesi, to which may be added the quota of knowledge provided by missionaries of many nationalities and by the Voortrekkers in South Africa.

Plate: MARTIN WALDSEEMULLER Tabula Moderna Aphrice Strassburg (1522) 1525. This map, included in a new edition of Waldseemuller's Ptolemaic atlas, first issued in 1513, was revised by Laurent Fries with the inclusion of decorative but geographically inaccurate detail from earlier maps. In spite of its inaccuracies in the interior, it was an important map, which influenced cartographers for a century or more.

The results of these explorations, the naming of newly discovered lakes, rivers and mountain ranges, the establishment of new settlements, were soon recorded on maps which appeared in constantly revised editions by such publishers as Cary, Arrowsmith, the Wylds, and Tallis and Co. in London, Thomson and Co. in Edinburgh, Levasseur, P. and A. Lapie', Brue' in France, and Vandermaelen in Brussels.

Specialist References

THEATRUM ORBIS TERRARUM NV

Sanuto: Geografia dell' Africa, 1588

Reproduction of complete atlas

TOOLEY, R. V., Collector's Guide to Maps of the African Continent and Southern Africa Invaluable reference book to maps of the Continent --- Maps and Map Makers

TOOLEY, R. V., BRICKER, c. and CRONE, G. R., Landmarks of Map Making

The chapters in this book on the Continents are particularly interesting and informative

Plate: ALEXIS HUBERT JAILLOT L'Afrique divis6e en ses Empires Amsterdam 1 79Z. Map of the Continent, originally published by Jaillot (Paris 1694), was subsequently reissued by R. and J. Ottens (Amsterdam 1740). This edition, with amended imprint, was published in Amsterdam by J. B. Elwe.

Plate: JOAN BLAEU Aethiopia Inftrior vel Exterior Amsterdam i 63 . Considered to be the finest map of Southern Africa of its time; much copied by other publishers until the end of the seventeenth century. Continued use of Portuguese names on the coastline betrays the map's origins from the old nautical charts used by the early explorers.

ASIA

Although Arabia, Persia, the Silk Road to China and those parts of Northern India conquered by Alexander the Great were known to the classical world, it was not until the year AD 1375 that a map giving some idea of the real shape and size of the Continent was compiled. This was the famous Catalan Map, based on reports of Franciscan missionaries and the writings of Marco Polo. A century or so later, in the first Ptolemaic atlases, there were altogether 12 maps of Asia which, of course, revealed no more or less than Ptolemy's view of the ancient world, but in the expanded Waldseemuller editions of 1513 and 1522 there were 'modern' regional maps including much information from Marco Polo's travels. Later sixteenth-century maps continued to show many of the distorted outlines copied from Ptolemy although by this time India, Ceylon and the Indies were gaining a more recognizable shape. Munster was again the first publisher to print a separate map of the Continent and later Ortelius issued the first separately printed maps of China (1584) and Japan (1595). In the next century highly decorative maps of the Continent were published by van den Keere (1614), Speed (1627), Blaeu (1630), de Wit (1660), Visscher (c. 1680) and others too numerous to list.

Perhaps because the vast areas of the continent made it difficult to include interesting detail on general maps,

Plate: GUILLAUME DELISLE Carte ae fEgypte de Ia Nubie ae l'Abissinie Amsterdam 1735. This edition of a very elegant map of the Middle East by the noted French cartographer, G. Delisle, was issued by the Dutch publishers, Covens and Mortier.

it is usually found that maps of the major regions, e.g. Muscovy, Tartary, China, Japan, India and the Holy Land make a greater appeal to most collectors. The Ortelius and Mercator maps, especially, of these countries are all fascinating examples of the beliefs of the time, not only in their geographical content but also in their decoration, recording the customs and habits of little-known lands.

A brief outline of the history of map making in the more important countries of Asia is given in the following paragraphs.

China

In contrast to the history of the mapping of America, Africa and India where European influence was all-important, the story in China is a different matter altogether and the first maps appeared there long before those in Europe. It seems that the whole of China and its regions had been mapped in some form as far back as 1100 BC but, as in Europe, cartographic development had an uneven growth. Almost 1 00 years after Ptolemy produced his Geographia in Alexandria,

Plate: MARTIN WALD5EEMU~LLER Tabula Moderna Terra Sanctac Strassburg (1522) 1525. Derived from a map by Pietro Vesconte, a Genoan cartographer working in Venice in the early fourteenth century, this map has East at the top as is often the case with maps of the Holy Land.

and about the same time as the invention of paper in China, an 1 8-sheet map of that country was made by P'ei Hsui (AD 224-71) who was the first recorded Chinese map maker of note. This map has not survived, nor have others which followed it, but two engraved on stone in the twelfth century are still in existence.

In the following century the remarkable journeys of Marco Polo between the years 1271 and 1295 and his predecessors, Carpini (1245), Rubruquis (1252) and other Franciscan missionaries renewed the contacts between Europe and China which had existed in nebulous form long before Ptolemy's day. Although Marco Polo was not in the usual sense a cartographer, the account of his travels enabled scholars to revise their ideas of the shape of Cathay and the myriad islands of the Indies. Later still, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries new generations of missionaries,

especially the Jesuits, following in the wake of Portuguese explorers and traders, exerted a considerable influence on Chinese map making. Certain names have already been mentioned elsewhere: Father Matteo Ricci who compiled the first European map of the world princed and circulated in China (1584-1602); Ludovico Georgio (Jorge de Barbuda), whose map of China was used by Ortelius (1584) and subsequently by other Dutch publishers; Father Martino Martini, an Italian Jesuit who compiled the first European atlas of China, the Atlas Sinensis (1655), which was used by Blaeu and others, J. B. du Halde's Description G6ograph-iquede la Chine (1735) used in 1737 by J. B. d'Anville in his Nouvel Atlas de Ia Chine. Other maps, usually based on those mentioned above, were issued by all the cartographers and publishers we have named so often, Mercator, Speed, Blaeu, Jansson, Sanson and so on.

Plate: ABRAHAM ORTELIUS Tartariac sive Magni Chami Regni Antwerp (i 70) 1 98. Map of the 'Kingdom of the Great Khan'. An important map, much copied by other cartographers, still showing California as a peninsula.

Japan

In Japan the history of map-making covers a shorter, though still considerable, span of time. As early as the seventh century AD the Japanese acquired knowledge of surveying and map engraving through their cultural links with Korea and China; their earliest surviving map dates from the fourteenth century. The first uncertain attempts to show Japan on European maps were not made until the mid fifteenth century (Fra Mauro, 1459) and even in 1540 Mjinster's map of the New World still shows 'Zipangu' and the 7,448 Spice Islands of Marco Polo, but as in China, Jesuit influence was responsible for providing the first reasonably accurate map of the country which was compiled by Ludovico Teixeira (1592). This was used by Ortelius and later by Hondius, Jansson and others as the basis for their maps of the country.

From 1640 Japan closed its frontiers (except the Port of Nagasaki) to the 'barbarians' from the West and consequently there was little opportunity for compiling more accurate maps but over the years there was a noticeable improvement on maps generally in the orientation of the country in relation to mainland China and Korea. Maps by a French Jesuit, Pere Briet (1650), Schenk and Vaick (c. 1700) and Robert de Vaugondy (c. 1750) all showed a better outline than their predecessors. Interesting maps of the country using names in Japanese characters as well as their westernized forms and a plan of Nagasaki were published by Johann Scheuclizer, a Swiss scholar, in 1727. These were based on the work of a German,

Plate: ABRAHAM ORTELIUS Palaestinae sive totius Terrae Promissionis (Typus Chorographicus) Antwerp (1570) 1595. The first of three maps of the Holy Land by Ortelius issued in many variants.

Plate: ABRAHAM ORTEL[US Terra Sancia Antwerp (1584) 1606. A beautifully engraved map of the Holy Land, again with East at the top. Jonah and the Whale are depicted in the lower left corner. The scale is shown in 'Hours of travel'.

Engelbert Kaempfer, who spent some time in the 'open' port of Nagasaki in the service of the Dutch East India Co. In the isolationist period, maps of Japan by the Japanese themselves were numerous, accurate and highiy artistic but it was not until the end of the eighteenth century, and indeed well into the nineteenth, that European maps could be compiled with complete accuracy.

India

Maps of India, much distorted in shape, appear in most world atlases from the time of Ptolemy, the earliest usually showing India as a relatively small extension of Southern Asia, dominated by the very large island of Taprobana (Ceylon). In later sixteenth-century maps de Jode, Ortelius and Mercator gave a much improved

outline of both lands but India was still shown too small in relation to the whole continent. Most publishers in the seventeenth century continued to issue maps but with little improvement in detail until about 1719 when a French Jesuit priest, Father Jean Bouchet, compiled an accurate map of South India, subsequently used by G. Delisle (1723), Homann Heirs (1735) and by

J. B. B. d'Anville, then the French East India Company's cartographer, as the basis for his greatly improved maps in 1737 and 1752.

In the next decade Alexander Dalrymple published a collection of newly surveyed coastal charts and plans of ports and, about the same time, in 1764, James Rennell, a young British Army officer who showed a remarkable aptitude for surveying, was appointed - at the age of 21- Surveyor General of Bengal; he immediately set in motion a comprehensive survey of the Company's lands, subsequently publishing maps of Bengal and

Plate: ABRAHAM ORTELIUS Abrahami Patriarchac Peregrinatio, et vita Antwerp (1590) 1595. The last of three Ortelius maps of the Holy Land, showing the wanderings of the Tribes of Israel.

other provinces which eventually formed The &ngal Atlas (1779). His other works included a Map of Hindoustan (1782-85) and The Provinces of Delhi, Agra etc and the Indian Peninsula (1788-94). These maps by Reunell provided the basis for a Trigonometrical Survey of India which was initiated in 1802 and for splendid maps published in London by Cary, the Arrowsmiths (1804-22) and the Wylds.

The Holy Land

Although the Holy Land may be regarded geographically as part of Asia, its proximity to Europe provided a quite different background where map making was

concerned. It was very much part of Ptolemy's world and there is no shortage of maps in the editions of his 'atlases' from 1477 onwards. From the earliest days of Christianity religious pilgrimages to Jerusalem were frequent, culminating in the mass movements of the Crusades, but records are scanty; such maps as have survived are predominantly religious in conception with Jerusalem at the centre of the world as in the Hereford World Map (c. 1300) or in the form of 'itineraries' such as Bernhard von Breydenbach's Sanctarum Peregrinationum (1486). In Palestine itself, at Madaba, there exist the remains of the famous multicoloured tesserae 'map', laid down in the sixth century, which depicts a plan view of Jerusalem and other geographical features of the Eastern Mediterranean.

Plate: JOHN SPEED A New Map of East India. One of the seven additional maps included in the final edition of Speed's Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World published by Bassett and Chiswell in 1676

In the sixteenth century, apart from the Ptolemaic maps and the world maps with Jerusalem at the centre such as Heinrich Bunting's 'clover-leaf' map it was not unusual to find printed editions of the Bible containing maps of the Holy Land. A famous example known as the Polyglot Bible by a Spanish theologian, Benedictus Arias Montanus, was published in Antwerp by Plantin in 1571-72 and, in the following year, another published in London contained a map by Humphrey Cole which is claimed to be the first map engraved by an Englishman. From then onwards maps by Ortelius appeared in their various versions in 1570, 1584 and 1590, by de Jode (1578), C. van Adrichom (c. 1584), Speed (Canaan, 1611-76, in a number of versions), Blaeu (1629), Jansson (c. 1658), Visscher (c. 1659), Dapper (c. 1677), de Wit (1680) and many others.

Specialist References

BAGROW, L., History of Cartography

CRONE, G. R., Maps and their Makers

GOLE, S., Ear~ Maps of India

NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM, Catalogue of the Library: Volume 3

TOOLEY, R. V., Maps and Map Makers

TOOLEY, R. V., BRICKER, c. and CRONE, G. R., Landmarks of Map Making

Contains details of manyearly maps of the Continent

Plate: WILLEM BLAEU India quae orientalis dicitur et insulae adiacentes. Published in Amsterdam in 1636, this map appeared in many editions of the Blaeu atlases: the first popular map to show the early discoveries in Australia.

A USTRALASIA

Australia

In the history of cartography nothing underlines more profoundly the influence of Ptolemy and the Greek mathematicians and geographers before him than the plain fact that the existence of a New World across the Atlantic was never even contemplated by their successors, whereas the possible existence of a Southern Continent was a source of constant speculation for 1, 5 00 years or more. Admittedly, in medieval times, enthusiasm for the idea of a populated world below the equator waned in the face of religious scepticism and ridicule but by the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the successful voyages of the Portuguese into the Southern Hemisphere brought about a revival of interest in the ancient theories.

Late in the sixteenth century the Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch explorers, looking for guidance at their world maps and charts, must often have suspected the existence of a land mass lying in the Pacific somewhere to the south of the Dutch Indies, and it is more than likely that the northern shores of Australia had been sighted a number of times even though no record of a landing has come down to us. Indeed, some maps, especially those by members of the Dieppe School, among whom were Jean Rotz (later chart maker to Henry VIII) and Pierre Descelier, give a clear indication as early as 1542-46 of such a land area. Other maps by Ortelius (1570), Arias Montanus (1571) and Cornelis de Jode (1593) add their support, albeit uncertainly, to the notion of an undiscovered continent. By the end of the century the Portuguese and Spanish had exhausted their efforts and it was finally a pinnace of the Dutch East India Company from Java, the Duyfken, which in 1605-06 sailed into the Gulf of Carpentaria to make the first recorded landfall in Terra Australis, later to become known as the Land of Eendracht after another Dutch ship which made a landing in 1616, and later still to be called New Holland. These discoveries were recorded by Hessel Gerritsz on charts dated 1627-28, by Philipp Eckebrecht on a world map of 1630, by Henricus Hondius in 1630-33, by Jan Jansson in 1633 on a map which shows 'Duyfken's Eyland' to the south of New Guinea, and by Willem Blaeu in 1636. The first chart by an Englishman showing the northern coastline is that of Robert Dudley from Dell'Arcano del Mare (1646-61).

Until the results of Tasman's discoveries in his voyages of 1642-44 became available most map publishers continued to issue maps such as those mentioned above showing vague outlines of the northern shores of the Continent, with perhaps a dozen names or so. Even after Tasman it could not be claimed that any of the maps of the time were very informative, but Joan Blaeu's map of 1648 was an improvement on that of 1636. There was not much to show, of course, except an extension of the coastal outlines and French geographers, particularly, were adept at supplying imaginary detail, although Thevenot published in Paris in 1663 a sparse and elegant map showing all the western half of the Continent with a hint of New Zealand. A close copy of that map was engraved by Emanuel Bowen for publication in 1744 in Harris's Collection of Voyages. New Guinea, Tasmania and New Zealand were not infrequently shown as part of the main continental land mass but gradually knowledge and accuracy improved; the voyages of Dampier in 1686-91 and 1699, of Cook between 1768 and 1778, Flinders in 1801-03 and the French explorers Comte de Ia Pe rouse and Louis de Freycinet and others ensured that the coastal outline at least was acceptably mapped, but still the interior remained a void well into the nineteenth century. In consequence, even up to about the year 1800 there were few separate maps of Australia and the continent was usually included as part of, or an extension of, the East Indies.

After that date the most interesting and the most sought after maps are those showing the early development of the separate states usually published in London. Apart from those by the major publishers, Cary, Arrowsmith, Wyld and Tallis, there were others by less well-known names:

JOHN BOOTH (c. 1801-10)

A New and accurate map of New South Wales Plan of the Settlements in New South Wa/es

MATTHEW CAREY (1817)

A new and accurate map of New South Wales: Philadelphia

JOHN OXLEY (i8 i8-25)

Charts of the Interior of New South Wales

GEORGE EVANS (1822)

Description of Van Diemen's Land

Plate: FREDERICK DE WIT Mare del Zur cum Insula Cakfornia. Dc Wit's beautifully engraved map of the Pacific issued c. 1680 in Amsterdam makes an interesting comparison with Coronelli's map of the same area published in 1696.

Plate: VINCENZO CORONELLI Mare del Sud . . . Mare Pacifico. First published in Venice in 1696, this splendid map of the Pacific shows the early discoveries in Australia and New Zealand as well as illustrating California as an island.

SDUK (1833-59)

Maps of New South Wales and the other states when they became independent

T. L. MITCHELL (1834)

Map of New South Wales

T. HAM (1856)

Map of Queensland

These in turn were gradually superseded by official surveys and by the work of local publishers.

New Zealand

Although New Zealand was certainly populated by Polynesian peoples many centuries ago, the first Europeans known to have seen the islands were the seamen of Tasman's expedition in 1642 during which Tasmania was also discovered. From about 1646 when Blaeu showed the new discoveries on a world map for the first time, there was controversy about the separate existence of the islands and another century passed before James Cook surveyed the coastline and disposed of any argument that New Zealand might be part of the Australian continent. Cook's charts published in the period 1773-80 naturally had a wide circulation and were extensively copied by French, German and Italian cartographers and publishers among whom were Rigobert Bonne/Nicolas Desmaret (1787), Antonio Zatta (1775-85) and G. M. Cassini (1792-1801). For many years after Cook's voyages the British Government took only a passing interest in the islands and the main contribution to improved knowledge of the coastline was made by French expeditions, notably in 1822, 1827 and 1840 under command of Dumont d'Urville whose later accounts of his voyages included many fine maps.

After 1840, when organized settlement began, the demand for better maps was met first by the private publications of firms such as the Arrowsmiths, the Wylds, and Tallis and Co., eventually augmented and then gradually replaced by official surveys of the interior and detailed charting of the coastiine by survey ships of the Royal Navy.

It might be thought that building up a more or less complete collection of maps of New Zealand would be relatively easy but this is far from being the case and even maps issued after 1850 are difficult to find.

Specialist References

SCHILDER, G., Australia Unveiled

A most detailed account of the early Dutch maps of Australia

TOOLEY, R. V., The Mapping of Australia

Detailed descriptions of a very large number of maps of Australia

TOOLEY, R. V., BRICKER, c. and CRANE, G. R., Landmarks of Map Making

EUROPE

All the atlases by the well-known sixteenth-century cartographers, such as Munster, Mercator and Ortelius, contained maps of Europe in one form or another. There were, of course, many others by, for example, Bordone, Gastaldi, de Jode, Waghenaer and Hondius, to name only a few, which are now becoming very rare and which a collector would count himself lucky to find. The greater output of publishers in the next century presents the collector with wider opportunities; more atlases by Dutch, French and English cartographers, often in numerous editions, mean that far more copies have survived and although it cannot be said that they are readily available, most dealers will have a good selection from time to time. Moreover, maps of the seventeenth century such as those by Speed, Blaeu, Jansson, Sanson and Jaillot, frequently embellished with decorative borders and vignettes, are often more attractive than issues of earlier years.

By the eighteenth century the range becomes wider still and, apart from the tremendous output by French and English publishers, includes issues by the Germans Homann, Seutter and Lotter and the Italians Rizzi-Zannoni, Zatta and G. M. Cassini, so that a collector has an extremely wide base on which to build a collection.

Specialist References

BAGROW, L., Histoty of Cartography

TOOLEY, R. V., Maps and Map Makers

TOOLEY, R. V., BRICKER, C. and CRONE, G. R., Landmarks of Map Making