Lake Nyassa were one inland sea extending to 6° North. A lack of data led Petermann to agree with his erroneous shape of the lake or lakes, but he was not convinced of its wide extension to the west and north. As for the sources of the Nile he was not so much mistaken, as they were indicated by a text near the equator between 30° and 36° East, but this was not so hard to induce. When one views the ethnographic and trade information in the map and interprets them from a relative topological point of view we can see this as the strength of the missionaries' reports. As their mission was focused on people and not on the natural environment this kind of information was of great importance to them. But geometrically their information could not be trusted, in part because most of their information was based on verbal reports of the native tribes. At other times he depicted maps of the same area from several authors together in one supplement map to show the authors' different interpretations. This was the case with, for example, the map of the Kerguelen and McDonald Islands sighted by John Heard (1853), William MacDonald (1854), Hutton (1854), Attway (1854), Rees (1854), and Neumayer (1857), with several comparisons of explorations since James Cook. The same with small maps (scale ca. 1:33,000,000) of the central part of southern Africa, which shows different interpretations by Heinrich Kiepert (1855), J. McQueen (1857) and David Livingstone (1857). Or with the representation of the Gabon countries, which show interpretations by August Petermann, Thomas E. Bowdich, William D. Cooley, Heinrich Kiepert, Paul Belloni du Chaillu and Heinrich Barth. Many times he included an outline map of Germany, or parts thereof or other countries to show the vastness through which the explorers had to travel. This must have contributed to the understanding and compassion the readers felt for the sacrifice and hardships the explorers had to go through to come to the results presented in the articles and maps. Stieler-Handatlas Since the first edition Friedrich von Stülpnagel had been mainly responsible for the drafting of the maps of Stieler-Handatlas. When Stülpnagel died in 1865 Petermann became responsible for the Stieler. He drafted some maps (e.g. Russland und Skandinavien, Süd-Polar Karte, Neu-Seeland, Australien, Süd-Ost Australien ) for the 4th edition (1863–1867), which reached 83 maps. In the 5th edition (1868–1874) we