CHART OF TERRA AUSTRALIS. South coast, Sheet 111. Published in 1814 as part of the very scarce elephant folio first edition of Mathew Flinders Atlas to his A Voyage to Terra Australis. Charts from the head of the Great Australian Bight east to include Port Lincoln, Spencer's Gulf, St. Vincent Gulf, Kangaroo Island and Encounter Bay.
This elephant folio edition was limited to an edition of 150, distinguished by a single centre fold and the publisher, G. & W. Nicol imprint below the ruled border.
The seminal chart of what is today the coast of South Australia.
Flinders was appointed by the British Admiralty to complete the charting of the entire Australian coastline Such a survey would resolve numerous geographical conumdrums that had come to light and also to secure the continent as being under British control. He sailed from England in 1801 and started his survey from Cape Lleeuwin, the South-West extremity of the continent, making his way east to Encounter Bay where he met the French expedition commanded by Captain Nicholas Baudin at the mouth of the later named Murray River.
Breaking off the survey, Flinders sailed to Port Jackson, refitted his vessel which was in a rotten condition and then headed north to survey the North-East coast. His ship (H. M. S. Investigator), was in such poor condition that after charting the Gulf of Carpentaria, Flinders abandoned the survey and returned to Sydney by circumnavigating Australia. Edeavouring to return to England for a replacement ship, Flinders was shipwrecked, returned to Sydney and left again for England in the small schooner Cumberland. Again this vessel was unseaworthy and they were forced to ask for assistance in Mauritius. Given that a state of war existed between France and England at the time and not withstanding the passport Flinders had been issued by the French; (there were anomalies such as the name of the vessel and captain), the governor of Mauritius imprisoned Flinders as a spy and he was not released until 1810. In poor health he returned to England and supervised the editing of "A Voyage to Terra Australis" which was published in 1814, supposedly on the day Flinders died.
A seminal chart of Australia and amongst the rarest cartographical records of Australia.
623 x 912 mm. (Ruled line).
Light off-setting as usual.
Good condition.