A General Map of the River Ohio, Plate the first. / Collot, George Henri Victor ; Tardieu, P.F. / 1796

A General Map of the River Ohio, Plate the first. Collot, George Henri Victor ; Tardieu, P.F. 1796

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Full Title: A General Map of the River Ohio, Plate the first. Grave par Tardieu l'aine. PL. 8.

Author: Collot, George Henri Victor ; Tardieu, P.F.

Date: 1796

Note: These four maps show the Ohio River from Pittsburgh to the Mississippi, at a very large scale, and would make a map over ten feet long if joined end to end. These maps of the Ohio are the best and most original maps in the atlas: "The beautifully executed map of the Ohio River depicts vividly the wilderness that this country was at the time of his journey" (Wagner Camp). The level of detail is great: individual farms are shown with the owner's names, soundings for the entire river length, towns and villages, swamps, natural curiosities, rapids, and much else. When compared with Zadock Cramer's maps of the river in his "Navigator," the Collot maps are much superior, containing far more information on the river depths and surrounding shores and islands. Thomas Hutchins large map shows the Ohio well, but only at about one fourth the scale of the Collot maps; Andrew Ellicott's two maps of the river, at about one third the Collot scale, leave large stretches to conjecture. As an 1805 printing of a 1796 journey, these maps are without equal in depicting the early settlements on the Ohio. Without color.

Reference: P1214-8; Streeter 1789; Eberstadt 137-132; Buck 48; Sabin 14460; WC 31a:2a; Howes C601; Wheat 236; Karrow 1-1228.

Full Title: A General Map of the River Ohio, Plate the first. Grave par Tardieu l'aine. PL. 8.

Published In: A Journey in North America, containing a Survey of the Countries watered by the Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri, and other Affluing Rivers; with Exact Observations on the Course and Soundings of these Rivers; and on the Towns, Villages, Hamlets, and Farms of that Part of the New World; followed by Philosophical, Political, Military and Commercial Remarks, and by a Projected Line of Frontiers and General Limits. Illustrated by an Atlas of 36 Maps, etc. By Gen. V. Callot, late in the French Service, and Governor of Guadeloupe.

Publication Reference: P1214; Streeter 1789; Eberstadt 137-132; Buck 48; Sabin 14460; WC 31a:2a; Howes C601; Wheat 236; Karrow 1-1228.

Publication Note: This group of maps appears in Collot's "Journey in North America..." They are some of the earliest maps of the Ohio River valley (in great detail) and the Mississippi River valley. Sabin notes: "This work was printed both in French and English, but not published, at the time of General Collot's death, which happened in 1805. More than twenty years afterwards, the whole impression came into the hands of M. Bertrand...The journey was undertaken in 1796, at the request of Adet..." The work was published in 1826, but engraved and printed in 1805 based on a journey in 1796. The strange delay in publishing is explained best in Wagner Camp. The atlas and two text volumes are superlatively rare (Howes "dd", Eberstadt: "extraordinarily rare").

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