The Stanford's Map of The Western and Eastern Hemispheres is from a fascinating series of reproductions from our Edward Stanford Cartographic Collection archive. The original map from 1877 was drawn by Stanford's Geographical Establishment and "published under the direction of the Committee of General Literature and Education Appointed by The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and of the National Society". Individual countries are presented in gentle pastel hues, typical of hand-coloured maps, with their borders outlined in stronger colours. The publication date of 1877 gives us the Americas more or less as we know it now but Antarctica with only a handful of coastal places named and believed to be flat. On the eastern side we see a Europe of large imperial states, much of Asia is as we know it, but Africa is still in the early stages of colonization with its interior largely unexplored. The stereographic projection, individual countries are presented in gentle pastel hues typical of hand-coloured maps, with their borders outlined in stronger colours. Latitude and longitude lines are drawn at 10° intervals. Hachures are used to show the mountain ranges and many other features of contemporary cartography are included: ocean currents and trade winds, surrounding frames showing the tropical zones and the position of the sun, etc. Additional panels on the side of the Western Hemisphere give examples of six different map projections, including Mercator's projection and the gores of a globe complete on the same scale at the equator. On the side of the Eastern Hemisphere you can see additional panels of the continents as viewed from the two poles as well as a comparative series of vertical cross-sections showing the principle elevations of each continent on their respective parallels of latitude.
Map Size: 47″ x 79.75″
Published: 1877