Globe made up of twelve hand-coloured engraved gores and two polar calottes with pinholes at the poles over a papier mâché and plaster sphere, varnished, housed within original shagreen over paste-board clamshell case decorated in blind, with silver hinge, hooks and eyes, upper lid lined with two sets of twelve hand-coloured engraved celestial half-gores and two polar calottes laid to the celestial poles, with a similar cartouche to the terrestrial, heightened in gold, small worm trace in southern hemisphere celestial calotte, unvarnished.
Dimensions
Diameter: 70mm (2.75 inches).
The first English Pocket Globe
Biography
Although born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, Moxon accompanied his Puritan(ical) father, James, to first Delft in 1636, and then Rotterdam in 1638 where he printed Bibles in English. By September 1646, Joseph and his brother James were back in London and had established themselves as printers of books of interest to Puritans – with one exception, A Book of Drawing, Limning, Washing or Colouring of Mapps and Prints (1647), for the map seller Thomas Jenner.
This commission inspired Joseph to leave his brother with the publishing business to pursue an interest in globe and map-making. In Amsterdam in 1652, he commissioned a set of copper-engraved globe-gores, which he used to print 15-inch celestial and terrestrial globes. At the “Sign of Atlas”, from various addresses in London, until 1686, he issued maps, charts, globes, mathematical instruments in paper, and scientific books.
In 1662, Moxon was appointed hydrographer to Charles II “for the making of Globes, Maps and Sea-Platts”; and in 1678 he became the first tradesman to be elected to the Royal Society.
Moxon developed a lifelong interest in craft of printing, and his ‘Proves of Several Sorts of Letters Cast by Joseph Moxon’ (1669), is the first complete English type specimen known. His Mechanick Exercises: … Applied to the Art of Printing, published in twenty-four numbers in 1683–4, “details all aspects of printing techniques of his day, capturing for posterity the unrecorded tacit craft skills. The value of the text is not that it explains technical innovation—there is none—but it is the precise record of the printing trade seen through the eyes of a practitioner” (Bryden for DNB).
From 1686 until his death, Moxon lived with his son, James, a map engraver who continued to sell his father’s globes, instruments, and books which included a third and enlarged edition of his father’s Mathematical Dictionary (1700), the first English-language dictionary devoted to the terminology of mathematics.
Literature
Bryden, D.J., “The Instrument-maker and the Printer: Paper Instruments made in Seventeenth Century London”, Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society, 55 (Dec.1997)
--, “Capital in the London Publishing Trade: James Moxon’s Stock Disposal of 1698, a ‘Mathematical Lottery’, The Library, sixth series, vol.XIX, no.4, (Dec.1997)
--, “Early Printed Ephemera of London Instrument Makers: Trade Catalogues”, Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society, 64 (Mar.2000)
Christie’s South Kensington, Scientific and Medical Instruments including barometers (Sale catalogue 1221, 18 July 1985, Lot 34)
--, Scientific, Medical and Engineering Works of Art and Natural History (Sale catalogue 5650, 19 October 2005, Lot 140)
Dekker, E., Globes At Greenwich (Oxford, 1999)
Dekker, E., and van der Krogt, P., Globes From The Western World (London, 1993)
Hausmann, T., “Ein Taschenglobus König Friedrichs I in Pruessen”, Berlinermuseen, N.F. XXII (1972)
van der Krogt, “Globes, Made Portable for the Pocket”, Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society, 7 (1985)
Middleton, A., “Market Place Autumn 2003” in Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society, 78 (Sept.2003)
Moxon, J., A Tutor to Astronomy and Geography, or an easie and speedy way to know the use of both the Globes, Celestial and Terrestrial (London, 1659)
Stevenson, E.L., Terrestrial and Celestial Globes (New Haven, 1921)
Wallis, H.M., “Geographie is Better than Divinitie: Maps, Globes and Geography in the Day of Samuel Pepys” in The Compleat Plattmaker, N.J.W. Thrower, ed. (UCLA, 1978)
--, and Dunn, R., British Globes up to 1850: a Provisional Inventory (London, 1999).
Geography
The equatorial is coloured yellow and graduated 1-360° with 1° subdivisions, the prime meridian running through the Azores, coloured yellow and graduated 90°-0-90°, the ecliptic ungraduated, the polar and tropic circles uncoloured, the oceans with a wind rose on the equatorial at 270° and the tracks of Drake and Cavendish marked, the continents with nation states outlined in colour, showing country names, rivers and forests and mountains in pictorial relief, California shown as an island, Canada with no northern or western coastline, Australia with no eastern coastline and partial southern coastline, New Guinea with no eastern coastline, New Zealand shown as a short stretch of coastline.
Astronomy
Graduated ecliptic, equatorial and equinoctial colure, the constellations depicted by mythical beasts and figures and the stars shown to seven orders of magnitude.
A geocentric armillary
[Anonymous].
[Armillary Sphere in Case]
Publication [Paris, c1700].
Description
Armillary sphere, pasteboard, covered with hand-coloured paper, solstice, polar, tropic, and equinox colures, and celestial equator with graduations on the outer side with divisions for months and houses of the zodiac, with a full stamped pasteboard meridian circle showing graduations in degrees, hour and geographical circles at each pole. The main axis with a miniature globe, diameter ¾ inch (17mm.), made up of 12 hand-coloured engraved gores, with two card planets set on brass arms set around. The armillary sphere set in a horizon bar and mounted in its original turned fruitwood case, some cracks in the base neatly repaired.
Dimensions
Diameter: 3 inches (75mm).
The Ptolemaic armillary sphere shows the cosmos with the earth at its centre. The complex device is made of moving circles: a meridian surmounted by an hour circle with metal pointer and an internal ring structure of polar circles, tropics and equator, joined by an equinoctial and a solstitial colure and surrounded by a planar zodiac band. These elements surround a rotating terrestrial globe, and a revolving sun and moon of flat paste-board discs, horizon band with calendar and zodiac. The four quadrant supporting the horizon ring give the latitude and longitude of major cities throughout the world.
[HOMANN, Johann Baptist].
Globus terrestris. juxta observationes Parisienses Regia Academia Scientiarum constructus.
Publication
Nuremberg, Opera loh. Bapt. Homanni Geographi, [c1702-1715].
Description
Globe, 12 hand-coloured engraved paper gores, over a papier mâché and plaster sphere, housed within original brass case, with gilded edges to both hemispheres, with hook and eye, lined with two sets of 12 hand-coloured engraved celestial gores. Short split to globe in the southern hemisphere with early repair.
Dimensions
Diameter: 64mm (2.5 inches).
The earliest state, previously unrecorded, of Homann’s only known pocket globe. “The only other known pocket globes by Homann are of the same size and design as the one here offered, differing only in that the sphere comes apart at the equator to reveal a small pasteboard armillary inside. It seems unclear as to whether these were first published in 1705 or 1715 (Dekker & van der Krogt, p.89 and p.83 respectively).”
Literature
Sumira 22; Dekker and van der Krogt, pl.20.
Biography
Johann Baptist Homann (1664-1724) was a German geographer and cartographer. He was educated as a Jesuit and destined for an ecclesiastical career, but converted to Protestantism and then worked as a notary in Nuremberg. He founded a publishing business there in 1702, and published his first atlas in 1707, becoming a member of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin in the same year. He collaborated with Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr on his book ‘Kosmotheoros’, which represented the solar system based on the Copernican system laid down by Christiaan Huygesn.
Homann was appointed Imperial Geographer to Charles VI in 1715, and produced his great work the following year, ‘Grosser Atlas uber die ganze Welt’. Homann was well placed to take advantage of the decline of Dutch supremacy in cartographic publishing, and he became the most important map and atlas producer in Germany. After his death, the company was continued by his son Johann Christoph. When Johann Christoph died in 1730, the company continued under the name of Homann Heirs until 1848.
Geography
Homann is only known to have produced one pocket globe. Although the present example reflects an earlier issue than previously identified in that it does not include Homann’s title as Imperial Geographer, which he received in 1715. The globe features cartography plotted from recent observations of the Académie Royale des Sciences in Paris. In addition to his collaboration with Doppelmayr, Homman published the gores of George Christoph Eimmart’s globes in his atlases, which would have provided additional cartographic information. The equator is graduated and shows ecliptic and prime meridian. None of the Antarctic continent appears, nor is there a coast to northwestern Canada, or southeastern Australia. “New Zeeland” and “Diemans Land” are shown only in part, and California is shown as an island.
Astronomy
The celestial cartography appears on the inside of the brass case and is graduated in degrees, the ecliptic is graduated in days of the houses of the Zodiac, with sigils, and the constellations are brightly coloured and depicted by mythical beasts and figures and some objects, with names in Latin. A cartouche gives the stars and nebulae to six orders of magnitude. Two cartouches read Opera IO. B. HOMANNI
S.C.M. Geographi Norinbergae and GLOBUS COELESTIS juxta Observationes Parisienses exhibitus.
Rarity
An apparently unique configuration of the first state (of three) of Homann’s pocket globe.
[HOMANN, Johann Baptist].
Globus terrestris juxta observationes Parisienses Regia Academiae Scientiarum constructus.
Publication
Nuremberg, Opera loh. Bapt. Homanni Geographi, [c1702-1715].
Description
Globe, 12 hand-coloured engraved paper gores, over two wooden concave hemispheres, nested paste-board armillary sphere within, all housed within original black morocco over paste-board clamshell case, decorated with fine gilt daisy flower tools and fillets, with hook and eye, lined with two sets of 12 hand-coloured engraved celestial gores. Minor water staining in the southern hemisphere, slight discolouration where two hemispheres meet. In addition to the terrestrial and celestial globe, this pocket globe features a rare armillary sphere, which is revealed by opening the hollow wooden terrestrial globe.
Dimensions
Diameter: 64mm (2.5 inches).
The earliest state of Homann’s only known pocket globe, here with rare ‘nesting’ armillary.
Literature
Sumira 22; Dekker and van der Krogt, pl.20.
Homann’s rare nesting pocket globe and armillary
Biography
Johann Baptist Homann (1664-1724) was a German geographer and cartographer. He was educated as a Jesuit and destined for an ecclesiastical career, but converted to Protestantism and then worked as a notary in Nuremberg. He founded a publishing business there in 1702, and published his first atlas in 1707, becoming a member of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin in the same year. He collaborated with Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr on his book ‘Kosmotheoros’, which represented the solar system based on the Copernican system laid down by Christiaan Huygesn.
Homann was appointed Imperial Geographer to Charles VI in 1715, and produced his great work the following year, ‘Grosser Atlas uber die ganze Welt’. Homann was well placed to take advantage of the decline of Dutch supremacy in cartographic publishing, and he became the most important map and atlas producer in Germany. After his death, the company was continued by his son Johann Christoph. When Johann Christoph died in 1730, the company continued under the name of Homann Heirs until 1848.
Geography
Homann is only known to have produced one pocket globe. Although the present example reflects an earlier issue than previously identified in that it does not include Homann’s title as Imperial Geographer, which he received in 1715. The globe features cartography plotted from recent observations of the Académie Royale des Sciences in Paris. In addition to his collaboration with Doppelmayr, Homman published the gores of George Christoph Eimmart’s globes in his atlases, which would have provided additional cartographic information. The equator is graduated and shows ecliptic and prime meridian. None of the Antarctic continent appears, nor is there a coast to northwestern Canada - but it has been hand-outlined in green - or southeastern Australia. “New Zeeland” and “Diemans Land” are shown only in part, and California is shown as an island.
Astronomy
The celestial cartography appears on the inside of the clamshell case is graduated in degrees, the ecliptic is graduated in days of the houses of the Zodiac with sigils and the constellations are brightly coloured and depicted by mythical beasts and figures and some objects, with names in Latin. A cartouche gives the stars and nebulae to six orders of magnitude.Two cartouches read Opera IO. B. HOMANNI
S.C.M. Geographi Norinbergae and GLOBUS COELESTIS juxta Observationes Parisienses exhibitus.
Armillary sphere
The miniature armillary sphere, with graduated meridian and three latitudinal bands, contains a miniature sun at its centre. The central band depicts the twelve zodiac house names and animal symbols in bright hand-painted colours.
Rare. Only one institutional example is known: that in the British Library, although the BL example exhibits a different form of the armillary sphere. We are aware of two further examples in private collections.
DESNOS, Louis-Charles
[Globe terrestre]
Publication
se Fait et vend chez Desnos rue St Jacques St Severin, a Paris, 1753.
Description
Globe, papier mâché, covered with plaster coating and 12 hand-coloured engraved paper gores, varnished, housed in original shagreen over paste-board clamshell case, with brass hooks and eyes, mounted in its original turned fruitwood case.
Dimensions
Diameter: 79mm (3.25 inches).
A globe of two halves…
Biography
Louis Charles Desnos (1725- 18 April 1805) lived and worked in Paris, he was appointed Royal Globemaker to Charles VII, King of Denmark. This may have had something to do with his acquiring the inventory of Jacques Hardy, whose son Nicolas’s widow he married. However, he did not stop short at globes: Desnos commissioned and sold maps, atlases, prints, screens, writing materials, and books. He acquired inventory from the Jaillot family and Nicolas de Fer, and worked extensively with other cartographers, particularly with Giovanni Rizzi-Zannoni, Claude Buy de Mornas, and Louis Brion de la Tour; sometimes fairly, sometimes in a rather underhand way.
There is no doubt that Desnos was a sharp businessman, with an eye for opportunity. As early as 1750, Desnos announced plans to publish a fifteen-map historical geography of France illustrated with maps by Antonio Rizzi-Zannoni, which did not come to fruition, even though he seems to have later claimed that it had. If that had been true, then it would have been the earliest such atlas of France.
In 1761, Desnos entered into a contract with Claude Buy de Mornas, to produce an Atlas méthodique et élémentaire de Géographie et d’Histoire (1761). Desnos’s investment in the Atlas… was three times the amount of Mornas’s. However, when Mornas was slow to provide the promised text for the work, Desnos pursued him for damages against having jeopardized the success of the venture and Desnos’s investment.
For his next big venture, Desnos decided to cut a few corners, and in 1763, the shoe was on the other foot, when Jean Lattre pursued Desnos for allegedly plagiarizing his Atlas maritime des Cotes de France (1762), reissuing it with maps by Rizzi-Zannoni. Desnos, at this point, was unphased by controversy, and compounded insult with injury by printing a version of Mme. Lattre’s map, Carte Helio-SelenoGeographique,… (1762), showing the visibility of a solar eclipse, due to occur on the 1st of April, 1764, from different places in Europe. The Gendarmerie was summoned and seized an example of the Lattres’ map on Desnos’s premises. Desnos blamed Rizzi-Zannoni for everything, which was easy because Rizzi-Zannoni had in fact worked for and been paid for map designs by Lattre, without ever completing them. On the assumption that all publicity is good publicity, Desnos used the controversy to advertise his version of the map, claiming in the Journal de Trevoux, that Lattre’s accusations were defamatory, and offering his version of the map at less than half Lattre’s price.
Nevertheless, Desnos went some way to learning his lesson, and subsequent atlases acknowledged, as well as capitalized, on the success of others,… and were advertised as being useful for understanding well-known, best-selling histories. Desnos’s catalogue for 1765 lists three newly compiled historical atlases of France: Atlas historique et geographique de la France ancienne et moderne, after Messrs. Velly and Villaret, and Tableau analytique…, both prepared by Rizzi-Zannoni; Atlas historique, geographique et chronologique de la France ancienne et moderne, to complement Henault’s work, Abrege de l’histoire de France; and another atlas to accompany Daniel and Mezerai’s history of France.
True to old form, in 1766, Desnos published Rizzi-Zannoni’s maps from Brunet’s Abrege chronologique des grands fiefs (1759), without crediting him, as Atlas chronologique de la France … servant de supplement à l’atlas historique pour servir à la lecture de l’abŕegé chronologique de la reunion des grands fiefs.
Geography
The globe’s geography stands at the junction between accurate mapmaking and what became known as “French theoretical cartography” (a catch-all to bury many geographical sins!). In the southern hemisphere Desnos is remarkably honest and shows incomplete coastlines for Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand. In the northern hemisphere, however, he plays fast and loose with Arctic exploration, and deploys a mostly fictitious coastline for both the Russian and American Arctic, as well as clear northeastern and northwestern passages.
HILL, Nathaniel.
Cary’s Pocket Globe agreeable to the latest discoveries. A New Terrestrial Globe by Nath Hill 1754.
Publication [London], Nath. Hill, 1754 [but c1755 or later].
Description
Globe, 12 hand-coloured engraved paper gores, clipped at 60 degrees latitude, with two polar calottes, over a papier mâché and plaster sphere, varnished, housed within original shagreen over paste-board clamshell case, with hooks and eyes, lined with two sets of 12 hand-coloured engraved celestial gores, with two calottes, varnished.
Dimensions
Diameter: 76mm (3 inches).
Literature
For Hill’s 1754 pocket globe see Dahl and Gauvin, pp.93-95 (Stewart Museum 1979.28.2); for reference see Dekker, pp.355-357; van der Krogt, Hil 1 and Hil 4; Worms and Baynton-Williams, pp.318-319.
Showing the results of Bering’s expedition to the Kamchatka Peninsula
Biography
Nathaniel Hill (fl1746-1768) was a surveyor, mathematician and instrument maker based in London. He started his career as an apprentice globemaker to Richard Cushee, and he later took on Cushee’s nephew, Leonard, as his apprentice. His shop was at the Globe and the Sun in Chancery Lane, and his trade card advertised “New and Correct Globes of 3, 9, 12 and 15 inches”. Hill’s most popular items were the three and nine-inch globes, which he published either as pocket globes, mounted on a stand or for orreries. After Hill’s death, his business was continued by Thomas Bateman, who took on John Newton and William Palmer as apprentices.
Geography
This pocket globe by Hill shows the rapid changes in European knowledge of the world. Although it bears the same date as another globe he published in 1754, it shows some significant revisions, the most obvious of which is the addition of trade winds. In Asia, the Caspian Sea has been reduced in width to reflect the findings of the Russian nautical surveyor, Feodor Soimonov, who thoroughly surveyed the sea for the first time between 1719 and 1727, and published his findings in 1731. The most significant development is the redrawing of eastern Russia, influenced by Vitus Bering’s second expedition to the Kamchatka Peninsula. Bering spent ten years (1733-1743) exploring along northern Russia, mapping the Arctic coast of Siberia, and reaching Alaska in North America. Bering died of scurvy during the voyage, and an island off the Kamchatka Peninsula was eventually named in his honour. Stephan Krasheninnikov published the first detailed description of the peninsula, ‘An Account of the Land of Kamchatka’ in 1755, which is possibly where Hill acquired the new information. The non-existent “Long River” in America is drawn after the account of Louis Armand, Baron de Lahontan, a French explorer who travelled around the Mississippi valley and wrote of a “Rivière Longue” in the area. Hill has also included the “St[rait] of Annian”, a semi-mythical body of water which appeared on European maps from the early sixteenth century, separating America and Asia. Hill shows it unconnected to any land because of uncertainties about the shape of the coast. Only the north coast of Australia (marked as “New Holland”) and a tiny section of “New Zeeland” appear, after the discoveries of Abel Tasman. The Antipodes would not be properly explored until the expeditions of James Cook, over a decade after this globe was made”.
Astronomy
The celestial gores, lining the case, are geocentric in orientation and, in a departure from most previous pocket globes, are concave, thus depicting the constellations as seen from earth. Previous pocket globes, most notably John Senex’s pocket globe of 1730, simply used gores intended for celestial globes, thus rendering the night sky in reverse when pasted to the inside of the case. The difference is most noticeable in the orientation of Ursa Major, with the bear facing in the other direction.
CARY, John and CARY, William.
Cary’s Pocket Globe agreeable to the latest discoveries.
Publication London, Published by J. & W. Cary, Stand, April, 1791.
Description Globe, papier mâché, covered with plaster coating and 12 hand-coloured engraved paper gores, varnished, housed in original shagreen over paste-board clamshell case, with brass hooks and eyes, lined on one half with a map entitled “The World as it was known in Cæsar’s time agreable to D’Anville”, and on the other half with “A Table of Latitudes and Longitudes of Places not given on this Globe”.
Dimensions Diameter: 76mm (3 inches).
Literature
Dekker GLB0001 and GLB0066; van der Krogt Car 1; Worms and Baynton-Williams, pp.129-133.
The legacy of Captain Cook
Biography
The Cary dynasty of globemakers was founded in the late eighteenth century by John Cary (1755-1835). The son of a Wiltshire maltster, Cary was apprenticed to William Palmer and became freeman in 1778. The first globes by Cary were advertised in the ‘Traveller’s Companion’ in January 1791. The advertisement mentions that his globes were made from “entire new plates”. It was common for publishers to buy or inherit copper plates for gores and alter them, rather than go to the expense of creating new ones. The address of the company at this time was 181 the Strand, and it was known as J & W Cary, to recognise the contribution of John’s brother William (1759-1825). Both brothers produced a number of instruments and maps aside from their globes and in all projects other than their globes, the brothers operated as separate business entities. William himself was primarily an optician and nautical instrument maker, after serving as apprentice to Jesse Ramsden, and had his own premises further down the Strand at Nos. 272 and 182.
Geography
In his advert Cary was keen to stress that his pocket globe contained “the new Discoveries, & the Tracks of the different Circumnavigators”. All three of Captain James Cook’s voyages are marked. The first, from 1768-71 when he commanded the HMS Endeavour, reached Australia and circumnavigated New Zealand. He discovered the Endeavour Strait (marked on the globe) in 1770 between the Australian mainland and Prince of Wales Island and named it after his ship. Botany Bay also appears, named for the specimens found there by Sir Joseph Banks, the naturalist who sailed with Cook. The second voyage, from 177275 when he commanded the HMS Resolution, reached the Arctic Circle. His third and final voyage from 1776-79, with HMS Resolution and Discovery, made Cook the first European to have formal contact with the Hawaiian islands in 1778; it was also where he died after a confrontation with natives, commemorated with the inscription ‘Owhyee (Hawaii) where Cook was killed’. The globe also shows the return journey of Cook’s expedition under the command of John Gore and Captain James King.
The extent of British exploration in the Pacific area is shown by the plethora of British place names. These include Duke of York Islands in Papua New Guinea, named after Prince Edward, younger brother of George III, by Philip Carteret, who circumnavigated the world in 176669; and Palmerston Island, an atoll named after Henry Temple, 2nd Viscount Palmerston (then Lord of the Admiralty).
The globe also marks other contemporary explorations. Cary was the first to use information derived from Alexander Mackenzie’s 1789 explorations in north-western Canada, showing “Mackenzie’s R[iver]” before Mackenzie’s own maps were published in 1801. Tasmania is still marked “Diemensland” and appears as a peninsula. The existence of the Bering Strait had now been confirmed, and it appears between America and Asia. Finally, the globe shows the 1773 Arctic expedition of Constantine Phipps, 2nd Baron Mulgrave (with a young Horatio Nelson on board), where Phipps was the first European to describe the polar bear as a distinct species.
Globe, 12 hand-coloured engraved paper gores, over a papier mâché and plaster sphere, varnished, brass meridian ring, which sits in a engraved hand-coloured and varnished horizon ring, housed within original shagreen over paste-board clamshell case, with hooks and eyes, upper lid lined with 12 hand-coloured engraved celestial gores, calotte, varnished.
Dimensions Diameter: 70mm (2.75 inches).
Literature Dekker GLB00588; van der Krogt New 1; Worms and Baynton-Williams, pp.487-490.
Biography
John Newton (1759-1844) was trained by Thomas Bateman (fl175481), who had previously been apprenticed to Nathaniel Hill. Newton’s first globe was a revised edition of Hill’s 1754 pocket globe, which he published in 1783 in association with William Palmer. The partnership dissolved shortly after, and Newton continued to publish the pocket globe under his own name. John’s second son William Newton (17861861) joined the firm between 1814-1816, which traded under the name J. & W. Newton. In the same year the firm produced a new series of globes, including a new pocket globe.
By the 1830s the firm was also active as a patent agent, and was joined by Miles Berry, a civil engineer and patent agent, after which the firm was known as Newton, Berry & Son. In 1842, William’s eldest son, William Edward Newton (1818-1879), joined the business, followed by his brother Alfred Vincent Newton (1821-1900). The firm became known as W. Newton & Son, or once again, on the death of William, as simply Newton & Son from 1861 until about 1883. Perhaps the greatest triumph for the Newton family was the Great Exhibition of 1851, where, aside from the globes they exhibited from 1 to 25 inches in diameter, they were awarded a prize medal for a manuscript terrestrial globe of six feet in diameter.
Geography
In a departure from pocket globes produced in the eighteenth century Newton has mounted the present globe in a graduated brass meridian ring. The ring fits into two slots in the paper horizon ring which is pasted on to the lower part of the case. This enables the globe to be positioned at an angle, mimicking the earth’s axial tilt.
In Australia, the “G[ulf] of St Vincent” appears. Earlier versions of the globe show the southeastern coast labelled “French disc.”, after the scientific expedition led by Nicolas Baudin (1800-1803). Baudin’s expedition was sent by Napoleon to complete the charting of Australia, and in particular to examine the Australian south coast in order to find a strait which supposedly divided the Australian landmass in half. Louis Claude de Saulses de Freycinet served as cartographer. The British explorer Captain Matthew Flinders was exploring the area at the same time, and the expeditions met each other in the consequently named “Encounter Bay”. Although Flinders completed the task before Baudin, he was captured and imprisoned for six years at Mauritius on his voyage home, along with his charts and manuscripts. This allowed the French explorers to print their account of the new discoveries before Flinders, and for Freycinet to produce the first complete chart of the Australian continent. The maps and charts prepared by Freycinet entirely ignored the discoveries of Grant and Flinders and depict the whole of the newly
discovered coast of Melbourne to the border of Western Australia as the ‘Terre Napoleon’. However, by the time of the present globe’s production, this had been corrected to show Flinders’ discoveries.
To North America, several cities are named on the east coast: Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chesapeake, and Charlestown. The northwest coast is labelled “Vancouver’s disc.”, after George Vancouver’s 1791-95 expedition. Further north Alaska is marked “Russian Settlements”. The Russian-American Company was formed in 1799, and set up a trading post in Alaska for the purpose of hunting sea otters for their fur. The United States would later acquire Alaska from the Russian Empire in 1867. To the west of Alaska the Bering Straits are shown but not named.
To the southern Pacific is engraved a figure-of-eight known as an analemma: “An Improved Analemma shewing the sun’s declination & place in the zodiac for each day of inspection”. In the South Pacific Ocean additional information is provided - “NB. This improved Analemma is intended to supercede the necessity of the Ecliptic Line hitherto unnecessarily drawn upon the Terrestrial Globe” - although Newton has failed to remove the line of the ecliptic that still surrounds the globe. On an example at the National Maritime Museum, dated 1816, the line of the ecliptic is not present.
Astronomy
Only the upper hemisphere is printed with designs depicting astronomical phenomena. To the rim is a zodiacal scale, with symbols of the signs of the zodiac. The rest of the hemisphere depicts the solar system, with the newly discovered Uranus named after its discoverer William Herschel, who had discovered the planet on 13th March, 1781. It was the first planet to be discovered since antiquity, and he became famous over night.
