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Color collotype facsimile map on 4 sheets. Each sheet approx. 42x72 cm. (16½x28¼").

High quality collotype facsimile of one of the most historically significant maps in the cartography of the United States. Following their return from their epic journey across the continent, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set about compiling the vast amount of data they had gathered. One of Clark's primary tasks was to place all of the many geographic and topographic discoveries onto a single map, and in 1810 he produced the marvelous manuscript map of which the present map is a facsimile, created at Yale University around 1950. The map was ably described at the University of Virginia's 1995 exhibit of maps and navigational instruments, "William Clark’s map surpasses its predecessors by presenting a radically new and remarkably accurate view of the upper Missouri and its connections with the Columbia River basin. The map is also notable for its representation of the western mountains as multiple ranges rather than a single range of mountains. This advance in geographical knowledge finally extinguished the idea of a Northwest Passage to India via the Missouri River and marked the end of the long-cherished hope of finding a short portage to the Pacific." Provenance: Ralph P. Bieber.