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Cartographic Innovation: First Atlas of Wax Engraved Maps

With Maps of Pre-Gold Rush California, Texas, Oregon, and Josiah Gregg's Indian Territory

The Cerographic Atlas of the United States was the first printed atlas to employ cerography, a printing process invented by Sidney Morse which would revolutionize the map trade. Issued serially in the form of three separately printed supplements to the New York Observer over the years 1842-1845, the atlas would eventually comprise 32 maps, but is very rarely found complete. Offered here is a nearly complete suite of 28 maps (with 2 sets of the original wrappers dated 1842), including all the important maps of the West: California, Texas, Oregon, Indian Territory, and Mexico. In 1845 Morse reissued many of these maps in his North American Atlas (with changes), with color added. Notably the maps of Oregon and Iowa - present here - were omitted from the 1845 atlas.

Sidney E. Morse, 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, especially in cartographic printing processes.  A detailed description of his map printing technique, which he called cerography and claimed could approach the beauty and detail of the traditional and more 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 as an illustration 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 the first such production: The Cerographic Atlas of the United States. In 1844 came the Cerographic Bible Atlas, and then in 1848 the Cerographic Missionary Atlas.

Wax engraving was one of a number of experimental printing processes in the nineteenth century intended for commercial use in large editions on a power press. As a relief process it was intended to replace wood engraving... The task was to find a medium soft enough to engrave, yet which could produce a printing plate that was sufficiently resistant to wear in the press... - Woodward, page 11.

David Rumsey provides some clarifying details about the production of this unusual atlas:

The first Cerographic Atlas of the United States. Issued in three parts (although Woodward states that it cannot be determined how many parts were issued . . .) . . . The maps are printed on both sides of a sheet and are uncolored. This was issued as a supplement to the New York Observer in 1842, 1843, and 1845. In 1845 it was republished as Morse's North American Atlas, with some changes to the maps and the addition of color. . . . When complete, this edition has 32 maps, four less than the 1845 edition, but including a map of Oregon and a map of Iowa not found in the 1845 edition - Rumsey.

The wrappers have some useful information about the production of the atlas. On the verso of both front wrappers, we find the following announcement:

The Editors of the New-York Observer have at length the pleasure of presenting their subscribers with the first number of the Cerographic Atlas. In preparing it, difficulties have been encountered of which the public can form no adequate conception... Cerography is a new art, and few can understand the delusive appearance which new inventions are apt to assume... It is more than seven years since the senior editor of the Observer conceived the thought of a new method of engraving, which should combine, in a good degree, the peculiar adventages of each of the old methods, viz, the facility in preparing the plate for the press of Lithography; the clear, fine, flowing line of Copperplate Engraving; and the durability under the press, and the rapidity in the printing, of Wood Engraving... It was not, however, till after nearly five years, and the expenditure of several thousand dollars, that he was able to complete the Cerographic map of Connecticut, which was published in the Observer of June 29, 1839... The eight maps now given are the First Part of the United States Atlas. The remaining maps are in progress, and will be given as soon as we receive the information necessary to complete them. Our subscribers must be patient. Unless prevented by causes which we cannot control, they will receive all their Atlases in due season.

The Maps

The atlas includes several notable western maps which incorporate geographical information from recent explorations: Farnham's Map of the Californias; Texas in 1844; Oregon (notably not included in the 1845 North American Atlas issued by Morse); Indian Territory, Northern Texas and New Mexico by Josiah Gregg; and Iowa and Wisconsin based on J. N. Nicollet.

• Mississippi. 1842
• Louisiana. 1842
• Maine.
• Vermont and New Hampshire
• Connecticut
• New Jersey. 1841
• Maryland and Delaware. With inset of District of Columbia
• Virginia
• Ohio
• Iowa [this separate map of Iowa shows an early formation of the eastern counties; not present in the later 1845 edition, which has only a map of Iowa and Wisconsin]
• Georgia. 1842
• Alabama. 1842.
• Massachusetts & Rhode Island
• Oregon [Derived from Wilkes' Map of the Oregon Territory]
• Texas. 1844
• Map of the Californias by T. J. Farnam. 1845
• Indiana. 1843
• Illinois. 1844
• Missouri. 1844
• Arkansas. 1844
• Michigan. 1844
• Iowa and Wisconsin. Chiefly from the Map of J. N. Nicolet. 1844
• North Carolina. 1843
• South Carolina. 1843
• Pennsylvania. With insets: Philadelphia / Montgomery and Delaware Counties; Coal Region. 1843
• Kentucky and Tennessee. 1843
• Mexico / Central America and Yucatan [also shows "New California, generally called Upper California," New Mexico, and Baja California]
• Indian Territory, Northern Texas and New Mexico Showing the Great Western Prairies. 1844: "... Probably it was produced from the same plate as the 1844 Gregg [in the book, Commerce of the Prairies] without the green underlay" - Wheat.

Maps NOT present:

• Florida
• New York
• City of New York
• New York and Vicinity

Map of the Californias + Republic of Texas + Oregon

Farnham's Important pre-Fremont map of Upper California, showing Dr. Lyman's and Farnham's routes to California. The 2nd Lake Timpanogos is almost gone. Sutter's Colony shown, before gold discovery. Missions & Channel Islands shown. Indian Tribes throughout. Mt. Shasta is labeled "volcano." A primitive mountain range is now shown east of the Coastal mountains, blocking the river paths from San Francisco to Salt Lake. The early Spanish Missions in Upper California are all shown. A terrific pre-Fremont map.

Thomas Jefferson Farnham, a lawyer by trade, headed up and expedition to Oregon and California in 1839. The expedition, known as the Peoria Party was organized to go to Oregon and "raise the American flag and run the Hudson's Bay Company out of the country". The members included in this expedition were: Amos Cook, James L. Fash, Francis Fletcher, Owen Garrett, Joseph Holman, Quincy Adams Jordan, Ralph L. Kilbourne, Robert Moore, Obadiah A. Oakley, Thomas Jefferson Pickett, John Prichard, Sydney Smith, Chauncey Wood, John J. Wood, Charles Yates and Thomas Jefferson Farnham. They were later joined by John L. Moore, Robert Shortess and W. Blair. T.J. Farnham was elected leader and the company carried a flag, made by Farnham's wife, which had the motto "Oregon or the Grave!" After the party split at Bent's Fort they were led by Capt. Hall J. Kelly to Fort Davy Crockett at Brown's Hole on the Green River and then traveled to Fort Hall and then on to Oregon. Farnham later traveled down into California where he took a ship home and wrote an account of his adventures.

A map of the Independent Republic of Texas appears on the verso of the Californias map, which shows the Texas Republic extending north beyond the Red River to Old Wichita Village and west to the Presidio Rio Grande and the Rio Colorado at 101°W. It highlights early land grants, counties, towns, missions, wagon roads, watersheds, forts, and other details.

According to Wheat, the Oregon map is "a typical northwestern map of the Hudson's Bay Company (Arrowsmith), via Washington Hood, but with new elements, such as Fremonts' South Pass. The Bitterwoor appears as a tributary of the Salmon, instead of the head of Clark's Fork. Missions are given prominence."

Rarity

This atlas is rare in the market, particularly unbound, in original printed wrappers. RBH has scattered records for individual maps and only a single complete example (unsold in 2010).