An attractive hand colored 1857 U.S. Coast Survey nautical chart or map of Virginia’s Rappahannock River.  Covers the course of the Rappahannock River from the  Chesapeake Bay to Deep Creek.  Offers countless depth soundings and navigational notes, but little inland detail.  However, it does identify the town of Urbana in the western shore.   The Rappahannock River, which extends westward into Virginia from the southern part of the Chesapeake Bay, was an important trade artery and boundary since the early colonial period.  Shortly after this map was produced the Rappahannock would become a major point of contention in the American Civil War, with the Union controlling its northern shores and the Confederacy, the its southern. The hand color work on this beautiful map is exceptionally well done.    The triangulation for this chart was accomplished by E. Blunt, J. Farley, and Captain W. R. Palmer.  The Topography is the work of John Seib and I. Hull Adams.  The Hydrography was completed by a party under the command of S. P. Lee, J. J. Almay and R. Wainwright.  Compiled under the direction of A. D. Bache, Superintendent of the Survey of the Coast of the United States and one of the most influential American cartographers of the 19th century.
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Coast_Survey" class="extiw" title="en:United States Coast Survey">United States Coast Survey</a></div>
1857 (dated)
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