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Unrecorded map of the United States by D.F. Sotzmann, engraved for Ebeling's Beschreibung.
Christoph Daniel Ebeling was a professor of history and classical languages in Hamburg. In the 1770s, he began gathering data for a massive geography and history of the United States. His first published work was Amerikanische Bibliothek. He also corresponded with many imporant Colonial and US colleagues, thereby assembling one of the best Americana libraries of the time. His Erdbeschribung und Geschichte von Amerika, die vereinten Staaten von Amerika, was a multi-volume work, the first volume of which was published in 1793. Over the next 25 years, he published six additional volumes, the last of which was issued in 1816. The work was interrupted by his death in 1817.
In 1795, Ebeling recognized the need for an Atlas volume and began compiling his Atlas von Norkamerika. The plan was for 18 maps, 16 of which would be separate states. Of the 18 maps, only 10 are known to have been issued and there are only a handful of complete sets known.
As noted by Schwartz & Ehrenberg, this series of maps is among the rarest of all cartographic Americana.
Daniel Friedrich Sotzmann was an engraver in the Brandenburg area.
The cartographic detail in this map is remarkable. The detail is consistent with Ebeling's exhaustive work. There are no recorded examples of this map. We did note McMaster University holds an 1819 example, which is substantially revised.
