Maps and Travel
For many years the collecting of voyages and travels, maps and atlases has been a leading interest of the Library. Travel accounts, atlases, and geographies can be found in almost every collection in the Department while maps occur both as illustrations in books and as separate sheets. Our earliest printed map is the "T-O" map of the world (the oldest known printed map) in the 1472 edition of Isidore's Etymologiae, while our earliest map showing any part of the Americas is the Johan Ruysch map of the world in Ptolemy's Geographia (Rome, 1508). The collections include many atlases such as the Ortelius Theatrum Orbis Terrarum of 1612, a Blaeu atlas of China of 1655, books of cities and collections of city plans such as the handsome Civitates Orbis Terrarum of Braun and Hogenberg (Cologne, 1572-1618) and collections of voyages like Purchas His Pilgrimes (London, 1625-1626), De Bry's Reisen im Occidentalischen Indien (Frankfurt, 1590-1630), and the first collected edition of Dampier's voyages (London, 1729).
The collection includes many reports of individual journeys such as Wied-Neuwied's Travels in the Interior of North America (London, 1843-1844) with its magnificent Bodmer illustrations of North American Indians, Herberstein's Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii, of which we have five 16th century editions; and Breydenbach's Peregrinatio in Terram Sanctam (1486) with its folding views of notable cities of the Mediterranean area. A special emphasis has been placed on collecting travel and expedition diaries, ranging from a 15th century Alpine-crossing itinerary to 20th century scientists' expedition notebooks.
A significant portion of the natural history collections (Ellis, Fitzpatrick and Linnaeus) is concerned with voyages and travels, especially with the great voyages of the 18th and 19th centuries. The emphasis is on those expeditions which produced some contributions to natural history, like Pehr Kalm's travels in Europe and North America (1747-1749) the voyage of the Beagle (1832-1836), the circumnavigation by Bougainville (1767-1769), the French expeditions in search of La Perouse (1791-1829), Sir Hans Sloane's visit to Jamaica (1687), and the voyages of Captain Cook.
64. Sir Henry James Warre, Sketches in North America and the Oregon Territory, London: Dickinson, 1848. Captain (later General) Warre traveled across Canada to Puget Sound and Vancouver in 1845 and 1846 in company with officers of the Hudson's Bay Company. His sketches, including lively views of buffalo hunting and prairie fires as well as the landscape of the Northwest, were published on his return home.
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65. Travel notes made by James Watt in his guidebook, Louis Dutens' Itineraire des Routes, Paris: T. Barrois, 1788. Watt (the inventor of the steam engine) was particularly observant of the state of commerce and manufacturing in France; he seems to have strangely unaffected by the political unrest of the time save for one or two enforced detours. The gift of Kenneth A. Spencer. Formerly in the libraries of William Bates, Henry Harley, Charles Singer, and Mortimer L. Schiff.
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66. A Portuguese 'calero' or 'calash', as sketched by Henry Smith in his "Journal" in Spain, 1809-1810. Henry Smith was an English attorney who killed his man in a duel and had to flee the country. In Portugal he joined the army under Wellington for a short time and then returned to England for his trial; he was discharged. His diary is filled with observations of Portuguese and Spanish customs (which he tends to compare unfavorably with their English counterparts) and nicely done watercolors of architecture, people in their working costumes, and military structures, with some careful battle plans. Acquired from Henry Bristow in 1973.
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67. "Map of the Country between Buenos Ayres and the Pacific Ocean," in Alexander Caldcleugh, Travels in South America, During the Years 1819-20-21; containing an account of the present state of Brazil, Buenos Ayres, and Chile, London: John Murray, 1825. Caldcleugh's account of his South American travels is filled with comments on the political and social state of the places he visited as well as scientific observations and accounts of adventures such as a hazardous crossing of the Andes. Gift of Deane and Eleanor Malott in honor of Marc Law, KU '20. Former KU Chancellor Deane Malott has also donated funds for the collection of South Pacific whaling voyages.
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68. Parts of the North African coast (Tunis, Tripoli, Cairo, and Alexandria) from a manuscript of Gregorio Dati's "La Sfera", Italy, mid-15th century. This basic geographical text of the early renaissance, a poem about the nature of the physical universe, is apparently the only work known to have been illustrated with a series of maps closely related to the portolan type of chart, including landmarks and sailing distances. From the library of Sir Thomas Phillipps (part of Phillipps 3542); acquired in 1968 from H.P. Kraus.
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69. Nicholas Comberford, Portolan chart of the Mediterranean, "Made by Nicholas Comberford dwelling at the Signe of the Platt neare the west End of the Schoole House in Ratcliffe", 1666. This beautiful four-panel vellum chart, still on its hinged oak boards, with loxodromes in green, red and brown, and gilded compass roses, is one of three Comberford charts in the collection -- the other two show Great Britain and the adjacent coast of Europe. Little is known of Nicholas Comberford. His shop was in Wapping, east of the Tower in London and twenty-one of his charts are known to exist, dating from 1646 to 1670. Acquired from John Howell in 1959.