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Map for Mr. Pennants Outline of the Globe Vol. IV
Map for Mr. Pennants Outline of the Globe Vol. IV

Map for Mr. Pennants Outline of the Globe Vol. IV

Author
Date1800
Object number00000898
NameMap
MediumHandcoloured copper engraved map on paper
DimensionsOverall: 495 × 592 mm
Mount / Matt size (E Fini Mount): 735 × 1012 mm
ClassificationsMaps, charts and plans
Credit LineANMM Collection
DescriptionMap titled 'Map for Mr. Pennants Outline of the Globe Vol. IV 1800' showing New Holland, Van Dieman's Land and the east coast of Australia.' This map was produced for Thomas Pennant's 1774-1800 publication ‘Outline of the Globe'. Pennant was a well known and respected 18th century natural history writer who published several works on the British Isles. Outlines of the Globe was his last and grandest work.HistoryThomas Pennant (1726-1798) of Downing in Flintshire, Wales, was one of the leading British writers of natural history in the second half of the eighteenth century. His work was part geography, part natural history and part travelogue. Pennant's ‘Tours’ were detailed accounts of 'the country' he visited. Such accounts required accompanying maps that were compiled from Pennant's extensive private collection of maps. Pennant was also a notable antiquary, with a keen eye for topographical detail. He travelled widely in his native North Wales, in England and in Scotland and his 'Tour of Scotland' won the acclaim of contemporaries. Samuel Johnson labelled him 'the best traveller I ever read; he observes more things than anyone else does'. In 1750, his account of an earthquake appeared in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. In 1757, at the instance of Carolus Linnaeus, he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Society of Sciences. In 1766 he published the first part of his British Zoology. In 1767 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. In 1769 he published A Tour in Scotland, which proved remarkably popular and was followed in 1774 by an account of another journey in Scotland, in two volumes. In 1778 he brought out a similar Tour in Wales, which was followed by a Journey to Snowdon. In 1783, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 1782 he published a Journey from Chester to London. He brought out Arctic Zoology in 1785-1787. In 1790 his Account of London was published, which went through a large number of editions. In his later years Pennant was engaged on the most ambitious of all his large scale projects, Outline of the Globe. Of the twenty planned volumes, volumes one and two appeared in 1798, and three and four, edited by his son David Pennant, after his father's death, in 1800. This map compiles the cartographic material for the Dutch explorers in Western Australia, Abel Tasman in Tasmania and James Cook the eastern coastline. SignificancePennant's work is an excellent example of a genre of scientific travel writing, popular in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The map is an important example of representations of the Australian continent that still linked Tasmania to the mainland, prior to Matthew Flinders naming Bass Strait in 1799.