This map is an early one to show the west coast of Africa in such detail. The Atlantic Slave Trade had been increasing for the past 150 years and was going to continue to increase for another 200. Portuguese influence can be seen by “Rio Portugues” dividing Mauritania (Genehoa) from Senegal. Goree Island, an early site of European activity, is noted. The cartouche shows light skinned people displaying products of bounty including fruit and...
Continue reading "On Display This Week: Senegal-Gambia, circa 1666"...The Panama Canal is a good example of a project that seems like it will be much easier than it is. Anyone looking at a map of Central America can’t help but notice how skinny that isthmus is, and how nicely it would cut down travel if only we could cut a canal through there.
For 12 years the World watched as the French fiddled around trying to build a canal....
Continue reading "On Display This Week: The Panama Canal"...-and-
One Hundred Proofs That the Earth Is Not a Globe. By William Carpenter and originally published in Baltimore in 1885. Republished in Zion, Illinois by Wilbur Glenn Voliva in 1929.
Certainly by 1936 practically everyone understood that the Earth is a sphere (or, more...
Continue reading "On Display This Week: The Curvature of the Earth"...We need to beat the University of Michigan in our Food Drive! So don't lug that unused non-perishable food and personal items home. Drop them off at the library. They will go to the MSU Food Bank to help others.
More information: http://www.lib.msu.edu/features/?e=329. Go Green!
This map shows the extent of European knowledge of African geography in 1841. Names of regions and places are almost entirely along the coasts, leaving the interior blank. One exception is some fairly good understanding of the oases and settlements across the Sahara. This map lacks busy details to fill unknown areas. Map-makers were by now content to leave areas of insufficient or conflicting reports...
Continue reading "On Display This Week: Africa Mid-Century"...Territoire de Michigan. Drawn by by B. Beaupré. Appeared as map 40 in Atlas Geographique, Statistique, Historique et Chronologique des deux Ameriques et des Iles Adjacentes. Published by Jean Alexandre Buchon and J. Carez in Paris in 1825.
The 1822 “Michigan Territory” map is the first separate...
Continue reading "On Display This Week: Copyright, what Copyright?"...The University of Michigan has almost two boxes of food and we don't have any. We need to catch up! Bring in your non-perishable food, household and personal items to the Business Library to donate to the MSU Food Bank. See our web site for more information: http://www.lib.msu.edu/features/?e=329.
Go Green! Let's beat the University of Michigan!
It’s a Food Fight!
First Annual Gast-Kresge Food Fight
(MSU vs UM)
or the first annual Gast-Kresge Library Food Drive Competition
Monday, April 1 – Friday, May 31
We’re collecting non-perishable food, household and personal items at the Business Library to donate to the MSU Food Bank. Clean out your cupboards before moving this spring!
Let’s beat the University of Michigan!
See our web site for more information: http://www.lib.msu.edu/features/?e=329.
The map depicts all the French controlled lands in North America, from Acadia in the north through the Great Lakes, and down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. The extensive text describes the territory they control, the history of its discovery, and names their numerous Native American allies.
The Lake Superior islands have gotten so big that that it hardly seems like a canoe...
Continue reading "On Display This Week: Fort Contesté"...The French were on the forefront of mapmaking in the 18th century. Geographers such as Robert Vaugondy carefully sifted through a wide variety of available reports, maps, and scientific measurements, balancing differences in conflicting reports.
This map focuses on French-controlled parts of North America. Vaugondy’s depiction of the Great Lakes is heavily influenced by Bellin’s 1744 map. The British were...
Continue reading "On Display This Week: 1755 French map of Canada"...