PBA Galleries

Copper-engraved map. 20x20.5 cm. (impression mark), (7¾x8"), matted.

Unusual map of the Western Hemisphere, part of a pair of hemispheres published in Thomas Burnet's "Telluris Theori Sacra..." (The Theory of the Earth). Shirley remarks that Burnet "was the first Englishman to attempt a scientific account of the origin of the earth. His treatise is a curious blend of geography and archaeology and aroused great interest at the time. There are two maps, of the east and west hemispheres, showing the continents in outline and marking hypothetical lands before the Flood..." The work first appeared in 1681, published in London, and Tooley notes that the "same plates seem to have been used for later editions from Amsterdam in 1694, 1698 and 1699." This is McLaughlin's State 2, [1684], with Fig. 2, pag. 151" engraved at the top of the plate. McLaughlin 77; Shirley 507.

 McLaughlin describes the map as "Western hemisphere of azimuthal equal-area projection. No place names except for the label `America' on the continent. Attempt to show the ocean floor in relief. California as an island similar to second Sanson model but with a more angular northwest tip, as by Colom and Doncker."