Antique Map of the Western Hemisphere with Highest Mountains Table, 1858

Original antique map of the Western Hemisphere, a steel engraving colored by hand in outline, lettered "WESTERN HEMISPHERE" across the top of the sheet. The circular map shows North and South America, the Pacific Ocean with its island groups from the Sandwich Islands to New Zealand, the western Atlantic with the Azores and Cape Verde Islands, Greenland, and the far eastern tip of Asia. In the south it shows the "Supposed Antarctic Continent", with "VICTORIA" lettered "Discov.d 1841". Boundaries and coasts are picked out in red, yellow and crimson, and the equator, the tropics and the polar circles are marked.

Below the map at the left is a table headed "ANIMALS ON THE GLOBE", credited to "M. Balbi", listing numbers of species of mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, mollusca and "Zoophites and other Invertebrates" to a total of "100,000 Species", with a second heading "VEGETABLES" giving "40,000 Species" "According to M. Decandolle". At the right a table headed "HIGHEST MOUNTAINS" names one summit for each continent: Mont Blanc in the Alps at "5,244 yards", Dhawalagiri in the Himalaya, Miltsin Peak in the Atlas and Nevado Sorata in the Andes. The imprint below the border reads "London. Edward Stanford 6 Charing Cross." and the plate number "1." is engraved in the right margin.

The map comes from The Harrow Atlas of Modern Geography, published in London in 1858 by Edward Stanford of 6 Charing Cross and sold at Harrow by Crossley and Clarke, booksellers to Harrow School. Its maps were selected from those of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (SDUK), founded in London in 1826, which issued its map series in parts from 1829 and was wound up in 1848; Stanford later issued the maps under his own imprint. On the sheet the Antarctic coast is drawn only in fragments, and North America shows Russian America, Oregon and Texas by name.

This is an original antique map, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.