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Rare Early Cerographic Atlas by Sidney E. Morse

With Maps of Indian Territory and Hawaiian Islands

Sidney E. Morse, the son of the pioneering American geographer Jedidiah Morse and brother of famous inventor and artist, Samuel F. B. Morse, was an important early American inventor in his own right, known for his innovative cartographic printing process.  A detailed description of his map printing technique, which he called cerography and claimed could approach the beauty and detail of the traditional and expensive copper-plate engraving process, appeared under the headline "Maps-New Mode of Engraving," in the June 1839 issue of the New York Observer, the newspaper he co-founded with his brother in 1823:

 ...we became satisfied that a new mode of engraving was practicable, by which map-plates could be easily made, containing all information on copper-plate maps, and yet printed, in connection with type, under letter press. Accordingly, we commenced our experiments, and persevered, until they were crowned with complete success. The Map of Connecticut, which we give on our last page, is from a plate obtained by the new method.... As the inventor of a new art, we shall be allowed, we suppose, the privilege of giving it a name. We accordingly name it, - Cerography.... [This method] with proper attention to the press-work, is capable of furnishing prints that will make a very near approach in beauty to those from copper-plates. 

After the Connecticut map which appeared in the New York Observer, Morse began to showcase his "new method" in several separately printed atlas "supplements"  - issued as inducements to subscribers of his newspaper. Between 1842 and 1845 he issued, serially, the Cerographic Atlas of the United States. In 1844 came the Cerographic Bible Atlas, and then in 1848 the present Cerographic Missionary Atlas.

Three of the maps relate to America: Hawaiian Islands, Indian Territory, and Western Hemisphere (North and South America).

The Maps

• [Untitled Western Hemisphere]
• [Untitled Eastern Hemisphere]
• Indian Territory
• Greenland and Labrador
• Part of Asia Minor
• Part of Syria
• Palestine
• Country of Nestorians
• Northern India
• Western India
• Southern India
• Bengal
• Siam
• China
• West Africa No. I
• West Africa No. II
• South Africa
• Hawaiian Islands

Rarity

This atlas is very rare in the market. No complete copy recorded in RBH since 1981.

OCLC locates only a single complete example, that at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, with two additional incomplete examples (with 4 and 17 maps, respectively) also located.