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Description

Rare set of Eastern Hemisphere and Western Hemisphere maps, with place names in Cyrillic, likely published at the end of the 18th Century.

The maps show Hawaii, but Tasmania (Van Diemens Land) is still attached to the mainland of Australia, which still has a conjectural southern coastline, and Antarctica is entirely absent. Greenland is connected to mainland North America. Korea is shown in a very square configuration and Japan is condensed into a thick main island, suggesting that this map did not benefit from the surveys produced on the voyage around the world of Krusenstern and Lisyanskii (1803-6). Similarly, Vancouver's discoveries on the Northwest coast of North America are not articulated, suggesting the map was made ca. 1790.

The charts also do not show the Polar coasts of Alaska. However, the Alaskan landmass is more detailed than in previous maps. For example, there is only a hypothetical outline of the coast in "The Russian Discoveries, from the Map Published by the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg . . . 1775" (London, Sayer, 1775, inventory number: 43369), which was based on Russian discoveries in the first half of the eighteenth century. A 1772 print of " Carte Generale Des Decouvertes De L'Amiral De Fonte et autres Navigateurs Espagnols Anglois et Russes pour le recherche du Passage a la Mer du Sud par M. De l'Isle . . . 1752" (inventory number 36008) still shows the discoveries of the mythical Admiral de la Fonte, as well as the Mar de l'Ouest and a large polar continent. None of these pretended lands are included in the Cyrillic double hemisphere chart, showing how the geography of the Northern Pacific had changed in only thirty years. Overall, the two maps show a view of the world at a crucial turning point in the history of exploration and cartography.

A very rare set, which we believe were separately issued and included in a composite atlas.

Condition Description
Very minor soiling and old library stamps, far from printed margin