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BOWLES, Henry Carington & CARVER, Samuel : Bowles's New Pocket Map of the Discoveries Made by the Russians on the North West Coast of America. Published by the Royal Academy of Sciences at Petersburg

46 x 62 cms., in fine early wash colour, with some light toning down the middle

The third state of Carington Bowles' map derived from Gerard Muller's Russian map of 1758. With tracks of Bering's voyages and those of Tschirikow with an enlarged speculative Aleutian peninsula. A fascinating map depicting British knowledge of the North American continent just prior to the major discoveries of Captain Vancouver in the north west.In about 1780 Carington Bowles first published “Bowles’s Universal Atlas”. An example of this edition appears to be in the Library of Congress. It was quite possibly intended to be a smaller and more manageable version of Kitchin’s “General Atlas” first published in 1773. Those maps were often multi sheet and folding making their use difficult. In the Bowles atlas the majority of the maps are single sheet. Bowles appears to have re-issued the atlas with revisions just prior to his death in 1793. He was succeeded by his son Henry Carington Bowles (1763-1830) who shortly after formed a partnership with Samuel Carver. The firm was renamed Bowles and Carver and continued trading at No. 69 St. Pauls Churchyard. Most publications by this firm are rare and “Bowles’s Universal Atlas” is no exception. Undated as before the atlas is usually ascribed the date of 1798 or thereafter based on internal evidence. Refer Shirley "Atlases in the British Library" T.Bowl 2a; Tooley's Dictionary of Mapmakers; Wagner, H. (NW) #597.

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