An Account of a Geographical and Astronomical Expedition to the Northern Parts of Russia for ascertaining the degrees of latitude and longitude of the mouth of the River Kovima;
Author: Martin Sauer (1785 1806)
Year: 1802
Publisher: Printed by A. Strahan, for T. Cadell
Place: London
Description:
[xxvii]+[1 blank]+[1]-332+[1]-58 pages with 14 copper engraved plates and folding map. Folio (10 ¼ x 7 ¾") bound in modern full burgundy cloth, spine stamped in gilt. ( Sabin 77152. Street VI: 3499. Howes S117. Cox. I-353. Hill I: 268. Smith 8989. Wickersham 6134. Nerhood #112) First edition.
Martin Sauer was an English civil servant who knew Russian, French and German. He became acquainted with Joseph Billings in St Petersburg in the 1780s. He agreed to join Billings expedition as his secretary and interpreter. It was agreed that he would write the official account, but there is some controversy about his actives when he returned to St Petersburg in 1794. It has been suggested that he left hurriedly for England with much of the important archival material from the voyage, including diaries and secret reports, so that he could publish a record of the expedition before Russian authorities and scholars in the Academy of Sciences could review its details.
Sauer's An account of the Geographical and Astronomical Expedition to the Northern Parts of Russia was published in London in 1802. It contains an abundance of detail about eastern Siberia and the Aleutian Islands, and records the expeditions visits to Kodiak Island, Prince William Sound and the coast south as far as Yakutat Bay. The chart was made by Aaron Arrowsmith from Sauer's notes and Billings observations, and the whole complements well the other contemporary accounts of the expedition by the cartographer Gavriil Sarychev and the naturalist Carl Heinrich Merck.
Aaron Arrowsmith (1750-1823) was an English cartographer, engraver and publisher and founding member of the Arrowsmith family of geographers. He moved to Soho Square, London from Winston, County Durham when about twenty years of age, and was employed by John Cary, the engraver and William Faden. He became Hydrographer to the Prince of Wales ca. 1810 and subsequently to the King in 1820. In January 1790 he made himself famous by his large chart of the world on Mercator projection. Four years later he published another large map of the world on the globular projection, with a companion volume of explanation.
Condition:
Light rubbing to binding, short marginal tear to map, text and plates a bit toned, some foxing, rear hinge just starting, bookseller's ticket on back pastedown.). With ink note of U. S. Department of State, October 1822" on title-page and some pencil marginalia else about very good.
