The World on Mercator's Projection Shewing the Zoogeographical Regions and the Approximate Undulations of the Ocean Bed
This map is the frontispiece of Wallace's book "On the Geographical Distribution of Animals. With a Study of the Relations of Living and Extinct Faunas as Elucidating the Past Changes of the Earth's Surface" (1876). This map shows the 6 regions into which Wallace believed the world could be divided based on the distinct groups of animals living in them. It also draws lines around subdivisions within those regions; Wallace established each of these subdivisions by comparing the ranges of many species and higher-level groups of animals and locating borders past which the ranges of numerous animal groups did not extend. The red lines on this map are not absolute boundaries that no taxonomic groups cross. Many cosmopolitan animal groups live in multiple of these regions, but Wallace thought constructing biogeographical regions was still important because, as the title of his book suggests, a sense of what regions share biota can help scientists figure out historical associations between different landmasses. Biogeography has serious implications for the evolution of both life and earth, and Wallace's evolutionary theories were based on his study of biogeographical ranges. Wallace was not the first to map out biogeographical regions of the world. He built off of the work of earlier natural historians and explorers who had noted distinct floras of plants on different continents and of the ornithologist Philip Lutley Sclater who, a few years earlier, had divided the world into six regions based on their passerine birds. However, Wallace, unlike any before him, focused his whole career on studying the distribution of species. This map shows the global scale of the conclusions that he was able to draw with further study building off his experience observing the details of species in the Malay Archipelago.
Alfred Russel Wallace
The geographical distribution of animals; with a study of the relations of living and extinct faunas as elucidating the past changes of the Earth's surface. Vol. 1.
Harper & Brothers
1876
World (excluding Antarctica)
Edward Stanford
John Bolton
Book figure
This map is included in the book by Wallace, but it is unclear whether he produced it. In his text, he notes that Mr. Stanford and Mr. Bolton worked out the details of the maps. These men, the proprietor and cartographer of Stanford's map shop in London, most likely made the map for Wallace's book.
Carte des nouvelles découvertes au nord de la mer du Sud, tant à l'est de la Siberie et du Kamtchatka, qu'à l'ouest de la Nouvelle France : dressée sur les mémoires de Mr. Del'Isle, professeur royal et de l'Académie des sciences
Philippe Buache
Joseph-Nicolas Delisle
l'Academie des Sciences
1750
French
North America, the North Pacific, and Western Asia
Philippe Buache
individual map
Harvard Map Collection
63301.512 1750.88
http://ids.lib.harvard.edu/ids/view/52869377?buttons=y
1750
Continent Outlines with labels referring to newly-discovered lands
This layer shows the outlines of continents, both known and unknown. The only color on the map traces the known coasts of North America (yellow), Greenland and nearby land (green), and Asia (pink). The relatively unknown coasts of the land around present-day Alaska, which is the focus of the map, are not colored. Rather, all of the postulated North Pacific land is lightly shaded yellow, and some of the less-known coasts are marked with light dotted lines. I have also included on this layer the place names and notes on the land in the North Pacific because these seem to be important indicators of how this land that the map is reporting was discovered and the kind of information that is needed to clarify this indistinct landmass into a well-known continent like the other landmasses on the map with their clearly delineated and colored outlines.