Bacon's New Chart of the World. -

Manchester: G.W. Bacon & Co. Ltd, Royal London Buildings, Deansgate, [c.1906].. Original large colour-printed chart of the world on Mercator's projection (c. 96 x 120 cm overall), dissected into 24 sections and mounted onto linen, the territories of the British Empire marked in pink/red. Folding between publisher's original burgundy cloth covers (25 x 21 cm) with title in gilt to upper cover, marbled endpapers. A notably clean copy, excellent in the original publisher's cloth. A wealth of detail is recorded on the chart, both in the mapped areas and to the inset panels: - 46 flag illustrations to the upper edge - 18 maps of mostly port cities scattered across the chart including New York, San Francisco, Wellington, Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong and Bombay - a larger inset map of the British Isles to the lower margin - polar hemisphere maps to the upper corners - panels of text to the lower margin including a list of British Steamship routes, a gazetteer of towns and a list of territories in the British Empire - a panel of text listing the chief geographical discoveries to date, culminating in Peary reaching 87 6 N.lat in 1906. On the chart itself numerous details are recorded such as transcontinental railways, steamship routes, altitudes, depth soundings and ocean currents. No publish date appears on the chart. However, as mentioned before, the list of geographical discoveries goes up to 1906. Further to this, Robert Peary's journey to the North Pole is noted and dated 1906 on the Northern Polar map at the upper left corner whereas on later issues his 1909 expedition is noted. We have also seen examples with Mikkelsen's exploration of the Beaufort Sea in 1907 listed.