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This compact copper-engraved map of North America, issued in Boston by Samuel Walker, 1834, offers an early-nineteenth-century overview of the continent from the Arctic islands to the Caribbean.
Longitude is measured west from Washington along the bottom border. Coastlines, major rivers, and mountain chains are crisply delineated; shaded relief emphasizes the Rockies, the Sierra Madre, and the Appalachian system. Polar geography is still uncertain: “North Georgian Isles,” “Baffin’s Bay,” and “Polar Sea” appear as broad, lightly hatched spaces awaiting further exploration.
Political boundaries are only loosely sketched. The United States extends to the Mississippi and along the Gulf of Mexico, but vast western tracts are marked “Unexplored” or labeled by Native nations such as the Blackfeet, Sioux, and Comanche. “Russian Possessions” occupies Alaska and part of western Candad, “British America” spans most of Canada, and Mexico claims the Southwest and California. In the far northwest a dashed line hints at the contested Oregon Country.
