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Library
The Society's Library of Books and Diaries
Maps
Collection of Australian and Overseas Maps
Photographs
Photographic Collection
Relics
Exploration equipment etc
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Map Collection of the Royal Geographical Society of South Australia
The map collection holds 800 maps of historic and contemporary importance and is
rich in maps and atlases. The collection began with a donation of old colonial maps and
plans by a
member in July 1886. Subsequently, a good many early atlases were
acquired with the York Gale Library and Thomas Gill, an avid enthusiast
on Australian exploration, added further maps to the collection.
The Society's collection of early atlases and maps are of particular impor-tance as they not only show the growth of knowledge of the world but demonstrate the improvement and elaboration of the art of cartography.
Ortelius Map of India (1598) (Click to zoom in on detail)
The Greek astronomer Hipparchus, in about 190BC, developed the work
of Eratosthenes by establishing the method of dividing the world into meridians of latitude and longitude, enabling meaningful maps to be drawn. Claudius Ptolemaeus (Ptolemy c75-153 AD) extended this work
by producing a map of the known world by calculating the latitude and longitude of every known place - some 8,000 of them. He devised various ways of depicting the spherical surface of the globe on a flat sheet including the conical and trapezoidal projections.
No map has survived from Ancient Greece but the European geographers, emerging from the dark ages, were able to reconstruct them using the coordinates left in the Ptolemiac texts.
The oldest cartographic work, and indeed the oldest book in the Society's Library, is Francesco Berlinghieri's 15th century paraphrase in Italian
verse of Ptolemy's Geographia, printed by Nicolaus Todescho and publish-
ed in Florence in 1482, ten years before Columbus sailed from Spain to discover the Americas.
The handsome volume, superbly re-bound in decorated red morocco, exemplifies the skill of the early printers in the arts of typography and engraving. In fact, the maps are some of the earliest produced from metal engravings.
Another rare volume of Ptolemy maps in the Library is an edition of his Geographicæ edited by Michael Servetus and published in Lyons in 1535. Copies of this book are extremely rare as every volume that could be obtained at the time was burned by John Calvin along with its editor.
Ptloemy's map of the world from the Society's oldest book, Ptloemy's Geographia printed
in Florence in 1482.
Ptolemy's maps were regarded as authoritative until well into the 16th Century and considering the importance placed on his work, it was unfortunate that he had rejected the more accurate calculations of Eratosthenes. Ptolemy also discarded the correct theory that Africa was surrounded by water, and joined its east coast to the land-mass of Asia, turning the Indian Ocean into a vast lake. The southern shore of this lake was later designated Terra Australis Incognita, and belief in this mythical land persisted well into the 17th century.
The world's The great Flemish cartographers of the 16th century, Gerardus Mercator
first atlas and Abraham Ortelius, produced up-to-date maps that finally superseded the outmoded Ptolemaic maps. Abraham Ortelius produced his
celebrated map of the world on a single sheet using the Mercator Projection in 1570. This he bound in a book with 69 other maps of individual
countries and regions to produce what is regarded as the first modern
atlas, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Theatre of the World), published in
Antwerp. Sir Francis Drake had a copy of this atlas with him when he
circumnavigated the globe in the Golden Hind in 1577-80. The Society has
the 1571 edition of this atlas as well as the last French edition dated 1598,
Theatre de l'univers, contenant les cartes de tout le monde, which contains 119
decorative and intriguing hand-coloured maps, ascribed to many cartographers.
Abraham Ortelius's map of the world 'Le Monde Universal' from one of the world's first atlases
published in Antwerp in 1598, held in the Society's Library.
Gerardus Mercator was the first cartographer to apply the term 'atlas' to
a collection of bound maps in 1595 and the Library has a copy of Historia Mundi or Mercator's Atlas, London 1635, which is one of several editions enlarged by Judocus Hondius.
Mercator is best known for his map projection in which the meridians of longitude are drawn parallel instead of converging at the poles, and
parallels of latitude are spaced further apart to compensate for this. It
allows compass bearings to be drawn as straight lines and is still used today for almost all sea charts.
Terra Australis The Society also has a hand-drawn and coloured copy of the original
mapped Nicholas Desliens' 1566 Mappemonde in the Bibliothèque Nationale in
Paris, made by Henri Delachaux in 1884. There was no consistent convention of north at the top until the use of the compass became
widespread. The Desliens map of the world has south at the top of the
drawing. It is also of interest as it shows the 'Java la Grande' which has
been the cause of much debate in recent years.
Marco Polo first described the Islands of Java Minor and Java Major but
place names from the latter were transferred by some early mapmakers
to Terra Incognita. Although many of the early Renaissance maps and
charts were French, the names along the coast of this fifth continent on
the Desliens map were mainly Portuguese, giving rise to theories that the
Portuguese first visited Australia more than 70 years before the officially
accepted discovery by the Dutch.
Nicolas Deslien's 1566 map of the world, drawn with south at the top and showing 'Java le Grande'. The flags
indicate the various European colonoal possessions.
The Society's collection of Naval and Admiralty charts covering various
mapping parts of the world includes some Australian and South Australian charts
by Baudin and Flinders.
Other Australian maps include some original survey maps of explorers
and surveyors. Examples of these are Stuart's pastoral survey plan of 'Warrow' Run drawn in 1848 and a map drawn by Babbage showing the country surrounding Lake Torrens and Lake Gregory (now Lake Eyre). There are a great many printed pastoral and exploration maps dating back to the 1850s.
All extensive series of early colonial atlases and maps in the collection is useful for charting the progress of settlement in each colony from the 1830s through to the 1890s.
Early in his Presidency, Allen Simpson formed a subcommittee of the Society in 1925 to prepare a submission to the government on the dearth of Australian Maps. Over 20 years later in 1948 Major-General Browne, Director-General of the British Ordinance Survey was still able to com-ment that 'Australia is the least mapped country in the world; in fact, it is practically unmapped'.
This situation was redressed with the work of the Australian Survey Corps and National Mapping.
Many of these maps are in the collection and of special interest is a series of military intelligence maps and accompanying notes of North Australia and South East Asia, developed during the war. The Society holds a complete set of National Mapping 1:1,000,000 series along with coverage of the Australian AntarcticTerritory.
Colum Map of the World (c1650) (Click to zoom in on detail)
The Society is producing a number of reproductions for sale of its important maps. These include maps of world
interest and maps of significance to South Australia. A list of these maps can be found on the map publications page.
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