Vaugondy Atlas - 1845
I bought this atlas in late 2019 for $125 on eBay and we digitized it in December 2021. Published in 1845, it explains geographically, with political boundaries, how the world was understood in classical times and then re-looks at the world is understood in 1845. I was especially struck by the drawings (p6) of the globes that represented both the Copernican and Ptolemaic systems, the map of the voyages of discovery (p23), the map of Africa (p38) where vast amounts are still undiscovered (it would be 26 years before Stanley found Livingston) and 22 years before the Suez Canal was built. The map of North America (p39) is remarkably accurate and the only unknown places are in the arctic where, in the same year this atlas was published, 1845, the famous and ill-fated Franklin expedition was just being launched.
