North Pole Map (5 results)

No Binding. Condition: Very Good. Engraved By Walker (illustrator). A fine antique map - printed in 1844. Mounted (matted) and ready to frame. Engraved Size 12 x 10 Ins, 30 x 26 Cms. Mounted size approx 15 x 13 ins, 38 x 33cms. Coloured in outline, hand colouring contemporary. A fine opportunity to purchase an attractive and decorative engraved antique map of the North Pole - Showing North America, Norway, Siberia & North Russia Etc.

Glogau, Carl Flemming (ca. 1900). Orig. printed clothbacked boards. Map in colour (42 x 48 cm.) inserted and folded.

Good. Light wear along original fold lines. Light toning. Verso repairs to fold separations. Size 13 x 11.75 Inches. This is an 1867 Victor-Auguste Malte-Brun and Georges Erhard Schièble map of the North Pole highlighting three proposed polar expeditions. The map captures the peak of the global competition to reach the North Pole. Reaching the Pole was considered a matter of national pride, with both government-funded and private expeditions making the attempt. This map captures rival proposals by French, English, and German explorers. A Closer Look With the North Pole at the center, coverage embraces the northern parts of the Earth as far south as the Black Sea and the Great Lakes. Red lines trace proposed English, French, and German expeditions to the North Pole. Four smaller maps (one in each corner) illustrate the proposed route of the French expedition, the South Polar regions, the variation in the Magnetic North Pole, and the average insolation curve for June 21, 1867, respectively. Three Proposed Expeditions Three red lines trace proposed expeditions to reach the North Pole. These were proposed by Sherard Osborn (British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer), Augustus Petermann (German cartographer and publisher), and Gustave Lambert (French hydrographer and Arctic explorer). Each was either an experienced Arctic (Osborn and Lambert) traveler or considered a geographical expert (Petermann). Petermann : Petermann's (1822 - 1878) efforts to push Germany into the race to explore the North Pole gave rise to the 1868 First German North Polar Expedition, which explored the northeastern coast of Spitsbergen (as suggested by Petermann) and prepared the way for the 1869 Second German North Polar Expedition Osborn : Osborn's (1822 - 1875) proposal led to the 1875-76 British Arctic Expedition. Osborn himself was set to be a member of the expedition committee but tragically died in London only a few days after the expedition set sail. The expedition, nonetheless, pressed on. They successfully pushed farther north than any previous voyage, reaching a record latitude of 83°20'26'' N, but were ultimately thwarted by extreme cold, scurvy, and difficult ice conditions. Despite not reaching the Pole, the expedition gathered valuable scientific and geographic data, mapping parts of northern Greenland and Ellesmere Island and disproving the long-held theory of an open polar sea. Lambert : Lambert's (1824 - 1871) proposal failed to produce an expedition. Lambert himself was organizing the expedition, which had an estimated cost 600,000 French Francs. He began raising money as early as 1867 and by July 1870 raised 400,000 Francs and acquired a ship for the voyage, the Boréal . Political events nonetheless intervened. When the Franco-Prussian War (1870 - 1871) broke out, the 46-year-old Lambert determined that his talents would best serve his country in the army. Although assigned to a company of francs-tireurs (marksmen) in Bordeaux, it instead went to Parios. He was mortally wounded in the Second Battle of Bouzenval on January 19, 1871, and died days later, on January 27. Publication History and Census This map was engraved by Georges Erhard Schièble after a map created by Victor Adolphe Malte-Brun and printed by the Imprimerie Monrocq for publication in Adrien Desprez's book Les voyageurs au pole nord depuis les premières expeditions scandinaves jusqu'a celle de M. Gustave Lambert . We note 3 examples of the separate map cataloged in OCLC, which are part of the collections at the Newberry Library, the University of Chicago, and the Université Toulouse 1 Capitole. An example is also part of the David Rumsey Map Collection. The book appears in about a dozen collections worldwide. References: Rumsey 16357.000. OCLC 244636850, 966290078.

Very good. Generous margins. Minor corner reinstatement upper right - limited out outer margin. Size 15 x 16 Inches. This is the first edition, first state of Gerard Mercator's seminal 1595 map of the Arctic, the great cartographer's most interesting and important atlas map. In this first edition, it is the scarcest of Mercator's atlas maps and a holy grail for any Arctic collector. For all its flaws and inaccuracies, it is a schematized interpretation of factual voyages between Norway, England, Iceland, Greenland, and Labrador (Markland). Context of this Polar Projection Mercator's Arctic projection has its roots in a magnificent 1569 wall map of the world in which Mercator first introduces his revolutionary projection. The difficulty with the Mercator Projection is that it dramatically inflates the appearance of size it draws near to the poles: its application to the polar regions themselves would result in an infinitely tall map. Mercator therefore included a polar projection, very similar to the map shown here, in the lower-left corner of his wall map. Mercator produced the present map, expanded and updated from his wall map, for inclusion in the first edition of his Atlas , published posthumously in 1595. As such, it is the first specific separate map of the Arctic. Taking it from the Top At the North Pole, Mercator depicts a large black rock, the Rupes Nigra , surrounded by a great whirlpool fed by four powerful rivers - 'the Indrawing Seas'. These divide a massive continent-sized landmass into four distinct islands. When the English polymath John Dee wrote to Mercator asking about his sources for this map, Mercator returned the following letter which survives in his own hand (April 20, 1577, British Library): In the midst of the four countries is a Whirl-pool, into which there empty these four indrawing Seas which divide the North. And the water rushes round and descends into the Earth just as if one were pouring it through a filter funnel. It is four degrees wide on every side of the Pole, that is to say eight degrees altogether. Except that right under the Pole there lies a bare Rock in the midst of the Sea. Its circumference is almost 33 French miles, and it is all of magnetic Stone () This is word for word everything that I copied out of this author years ago. The author to which Mercator referred is the Dutch traveler Jacobus Cnoyen van Tsertoghenbosche, whose report combined firsthand encounters with interpretations of an enigmatic lost work, the Inventio Fortunata (Fortunate Discoveries). This 14th century work, now largely forgotten, was a well-known resource for cartographers of the 15th and 16th centuries. The mysterious author may have been Nicholas of Lynn, Thomas Kingsbury, or Hugh of Ireland. The work told of a Minorite monk from Oxford who traveled extensively in northern lands, including Iceland, Greenland, Norway, and possibly even Labrador. The Inventio also cited far older lost works, the Principio Gestorum Arturi and the Leges Anglorum Londoniis Collectae , which contributed a chapter to the legend of King Arthur, casting him as a 6th century Arctic explorer, and describing Arthurian conquests of Iceland, Greenland, the Faeroes, parts of Norway, and even the North Pole. King Arthur - Arctic Explorer The Inventio described Arthur's invading Arctic army as consisting of some 4000 men on 12 ships. He sent the army into one of these 'indrawing seas', apparently the only way to bypass the 'Encircling Arctic Mountains'. According to John Dee, in Arthur's time there were cities lying beyond those mountains. Perhaps unsurprisingly, no further report of this momentous invasion appears in Arthurian record. In the fourteenth century, at the court of King Hċkan Magnusson (1340 - 1380) in Norway, Cnoyen met and interviewed eight travelers from northern regions. One, a priest, even carried an astrolabe. Historian E. G. Taylor ('A letter dated 1577 from Mercator to John Dee.' Imago Mundi 13:5668) believed Cnoy.

Very good. Exhibits slight offsetting. Dissected and mounted on linen. Old linen generally stable but reinforced in places. Size 26.25 x 33 Inches. This is an 1876 William Bauman map of the North Polar region highlighting over four hundred years of exploration. Centered over the North Pole, the entire world is depicted to at least sixty degrees latitude and lower in some places. Countries are labeled, but no national boundaries are marked. Very little inland detail is present; only a handful of cities are labeled, and lakes and rivers are illustrated in Canada, and Siberia. Tracing the History of Arctic Exploration Red overprinting notes expeditions by their leaders' names, including Barents, Hudson, and Parry, and provides the years of their journeys. Dashed lines in North America trace Sir John Franklin's expeditions in Canada between 1819 until 1826 before he disappeared on his fatal final voyage in 1845. Several subsequent teams, including the Richardson and Rae Expedition in 1848, went out in search of Franklin, but never learned their fate. Siberian coastlines, as determined by Nordenskiold in the late 1870s, also appear in red and are significantly different than the accepted coastlines printed here in black. The Polaris Expedition Perhaps the most puzzling notation is a dashed line through the Baffin Bay and the Davis Strait to Newfoundland that reads 'Track of Ice Floe Party of U.S. Polaris from October 14th, 1872 to April 30th, 1873'. This refers to the disastrous Polaris Expedition, which was one of the first American attempts to reach the North Pole. Commanded by Charles Francis Hall, who also led several expeditions into the Arctic to try and find the lost Franklin expedition, the Polaris left New York in June 1871. The expedition dealt with insubordination from the start. Led by the Germans Emil Bessels and Frederick Meyer, the expedition's chief scientist and meteorologist, the crew quickly divided by nationality and tensions never abated. Hall died in October after returning from a scouting expedition, and accused several of the crew, including Bessels, of poisoning him before he succumbed to illness. The Polaris and its crew suffered through an icebound Arctic winter. Even after losing its commander, and suffering through winter, an attempt was made at the North Pile. Nonetheless, they did not get far before being called back to the ship. The Polaris hit an iceberg on the way south and could not be freed. To free the ship, stores and supplies were haphazardly thrown overboard. Not a day later, the ship was forced to run aground at Etah due to a lack of coal for fuel. This forced the crew to spend another winter in the Arctic which they survived only with the help of the Etah Inuit. Interestingly, part of crew did not winter at Etah. On the night when the Polaris hit the iceberg, some men camped on the ice off the ship. During the night, the ice broke apart, and when they awoke, these men found themselves ten miles from the Polaris and were unable to get the ship's attention. They spent the next six months drifting over 1,800 miles on an ice floe before being rescued off Newfoundland by a whaler. Publication History and Census This map was drawn by William Bauman and published by The Graphic Company in 1876. References: OCLC 11600416.