Pre-colonial AFRICA. Mountains of WELLER, 1862 map
Artist/engraver/cartographer: Engraved by Edwd. Weller. Provenance: "Cassell's Complete Atlas", Published by Cassell, Petter and Galpin, London. Type: Antique map with original outline colour. This fascinating map of early colonial Africa includes a number of cartographic errors or misapprehensions. These include the non-existent "Mountains of Kong" in West Africa. The Congo and Zambesi rivers both include parts which are assumed (as reflected by dotted lines) such that they are shown on the map as joined to form a single coast to coast river system. The Zambesi system itself is further indicated to include a circular loop. Lake Victoria, first sighted by Europeans and identified as the source of the Nile in 1858 (4 years before publication of the map) is correctly shown as such on the map, although it is assumed to be joined to "Lake Baringa" to the north east (Lake Turkana?). The Mountains of Kong were 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: 7624px × 5552px
Location: Africa
Photo credit: © Antiqua Print Gallery / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
Keywords: 1862, 19th, africa, antique, atlas, cassell, century, circular, colonial, colour, complete, edwd, engraved, galpin, kong, london, map, maps, mountains, nineteenth, original, outline, petter, pre, tribes, vintage, weller, zambesi
