AFRICA: Map pre-dating much exploration. Mountains of 1848
Artist/engraver/cartographer: Engraved by J & C Walker. Provenance: "Maps of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge", published by Charles Knight, 90 Fleet Street, London, under the superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. Type: Antique steel engraved map. Much of Central Africa was unexplored by Europeans in 1839 and is therefore shown as blank on the map. Lake Victoria was first sighted by a European in 1858. The map shows the "supposed source of R. Zaire" and marks the furthest Portuguese settlement inland in Angloa. Marked on the map are the Mountains of Kong, a non-existent mountain range charted on English maps of Africa from 1798 through the late 1880s. An early map resulting from exploration of the area and showing this west to east mountain range in 1798 was produced by English cartographer James Rennell. The mountains were thought to begin in West Africa near the highland source of the Niger River near Tembakounda in Guinea, then continue east to the also fictitious Central African Mountains of the Moon, thought to be where the White Nile rose. Cartographers stopped including the mountains on maps after French explorer Louis Gustave Binger established that the mountains were fictitious in his 1887-1889 expedition to chart the Niger River from its mouth in the Gulf of Guinea and through Côte d'Ivoire.
Size: 4795px × 3907px
Location: Africa
Photo credit: © Antiqua Print Gallery / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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