<p>Steel engraving handcolored with watercolor.
</p><p>Outline color.
</p><p>Relief shown by hachures.
</p><p>Printed above top border:
"Amérique Septentrionale."
</p><p>Printed above top border in upper left:
"Atlas Universel Illustré"
</p><p>Printed above top border in upper right:
"Nouveau Continent."
</p><p>Printed beneath bottom border in lower left:
"Géographie et Statistique de V. Levasseur.  Ingenieur Géographe."
</p><p>Printed bottom border in lower right:
"Illustré par Raimond Bonheur Peintre."
</p><p>Printed beneath bottom border in center:
"Gravé par Laguillermie, rue St. Jacques.  No. 82."
</p><p>Printed beneath bottom border in center:
"Impie. de Lemercier, Paris."
</p><p>Printed beneath bottom border in lower right:
"A Paris, chez. A. Combette, Editeur, rue de la Parcheminerie, 15."
</p><p>Printed within illustration beneath map in lower left is a table of population statistics:
"Population des Etats d'Amérique.  Terres Arctiques  50,000.  Amerique Russe 50,000.  _________ Anglaise 1,200,000.  Etats-Unis 10,000,000.  Texas 200,000.  Méxique 8,000,000.  Guatemala 3,000,000.  Antilles (toutes les) 2,720,000.  Total 34,200,000.
</p><p>Printed within illustration beneath map in lower right is an explanation of the figures and scenes included in the illustration:
"Explication Du Dessin.  Le haut du dessin représente les regions polaires imposant leur empire de glace et offrant une barrier insurmountable á l'activité des navigateurs qui ont voutu aborder le pole septentrional.  Dans ces contrées désolées oú regnent d'effroyables tempetes, d'énormes montagnes de glace, image de la mort ont sokuvent arête les vaisseaux des marins intrépides don't la science a eu á deplorer la pérte.  Les ours blancs, les phoques les baleines habitant ces eaux et ces terres oú le soleil fait á peine luire ses rayons.  Sur le Continent, la contrée des Lacs qui communiquent entre eux par d'imposantes cascades, voit se faivre le commerce des pelleteries avec les tribus sauvages qui arrivent le long des fleuves.  De l'autre cote du dessin on voit les chemins de fer don't les Etats-Unis sont sillonnés et le templre de Montezuma qui represent le Méxique.  Les végétaux et les animaux de ce monde don't la découverte de Christophe Colomb a favorisé la connaissance complete, servent á embellir cette carteau bas de la quelle la jenue Amérique se repose au milieu des vegetations luxuriantes de sa partie méridionale et de sa guirlande d'iles que possédent les Européens."
</p><p>Depicts North America including Alaska, Canada as "Amerique Anglais", the United States, Texas as a sovereign nation, Mexico, Cuba, and the West Indies.  Labels the Arctic Ocean as "Océan Glacial Arctique."  The Bering Strait is shown as is the Bering Sea, the Gulf of California, the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, the Mississippi River, the Great Lakes, the Rocky Mountains, and the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  The far northern coast of South America is also included as well as Iceland.  Of note, Greenland is shown as a peninsula jutting out from land connecting to the North Pole.  Surrounding the map is a large, full-color illustration with various glacial and tropical scenes, people, flora and fauna. In the bottom left, an Aztec pyramid is visible in the background. In the top right of the drawing are icy mountains and a boat blocked from passing through them to symbolize the North Pole.  In the foreground are two vultures, a polar bear, a brown bear, a buffalo, a crocodile, a deer, a cougar, a porcupine and a coyote.  Directly beneath the map is female figure of a "goddess of the harvest" reclining next to a bale of cotton.
</p>
Scale:  c.a. 1: 40,000,000.<p class="mw-empty-elt"></p>
<p>Victor Levasseur was a French cartographer in the nineteenth century.  His major work was the "Atlas National … de la France" which he produced in 1845 and later editions (Tooley, 390).

Laguillermé was a French engraver in the nineteenth century.  He worked for Levasseur from 1854 to 1861 (Tooley, 371).

Lemercier was a Parisian printer.  His works include "Océanie" for Furne (1842) and "Océanie" for Levasseur (1838) (Tooley, 387).

This particular map was published in Levasseur's "Atlas National … de la France" (David Rumsey Cartography Associates).

Source(s):

David Rumsey Cartography Associates.  "David Rumsey Collection:  Amerique Septentrionale. Atlas Universel Illustre. Noveau Continent."

Tooley, Ronald Vere. "Tooley's Dictionary of Mapmakers."  Hertfordshire:  Map Collector Publications Limited, 1979.

University of Maine.  Catalog Record.  Accessed 9 Feb 2009.</p>
<ul><li>Subjects (LCSH): North America-Maps-Early works to 1800.</li>
<li>Categories: Historical Illustrated Scene; Cartographic Curiosa</li></ul>
A. Combette
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://content.lib.washington.edu/mapsweb/index.html">World and Regional Maps Collection</a>