This is a rare 1858 Baron Bernhard von Wüllerstorf-Urbair map of Kimois Bay and the southern part of the island of Car, one of several maps the Indian Ocean drawn by the 1857 - 1859 Novara Expedition. This map includes a brief legend noting longitude, latitude, units of measurement, and conversion.
The Nicobar Islands and Kimois Bay
The Nicobar Islands are in the eastern Indian Ocean, close to the island of Sumatra and just south of the Andaman Islands. They were included in the Mao Kun map of the Zheng He Voyages (鄭和航海圖) of the early 17th century. Various colonial powers tried to lay claim to the islands, including Austria in the 1770s - 1780s, and, most successfully, the Danish, who saw the islands as an extension of their trading colony at Tranquebar on the Indian subcontinent. As a result, the Danes compleated the most extensive mapping of the islands prior to the Novara. This map shows a settlement (Dorf Komios) on the Bay on the southern side of Car Nicobar. Whereas members of the Novara travelled into the interior of the island by small boats on a river on the northern side of Car Nicobar, here it appears they landed and stayed close to the beach.The Novara Expedition of 1857 - 1859
The Austrian Navy frigate Novara under the command of Baron Bernhard von Wüllerstorf-Urbair circumnavigated the globe between April 30, 1857 and August 26, 1859. The ambitious voyage was primarily of a scientific nature and the ship carried several well-known scientists, including a geologist, an ethnologist, and a zoologist. It had the support of high-level Austrian nobles, officials, and scientists, such as Alexander von Humboldt. Many items collected on the voyage were later housed in museums in Vienna, especially the imperial Naturhistorisches Hofmuseum.
Aside from von Wüllerstorf-Urbair's own account of the voyage, mentioned below, a report stretching to 21 volumes on various aspects of the journey (zoology, anthropology, geology and paleontology, linguistics, etc.) was presented to the Viennese Academy of Sciences and published for the public. An abridged three volume account was also published by Dr. Karl von Scherzer in English and German and proved to be wildly popular. The long-term impact of the voyage was considerable, especially in the sciences. Among other results, Scherzer brought back to Austria an extensive collection of coca leaves that he gave to a graduate student, Albert Niemann, who was the first to isolate cocaine. In 2004, the Novara was featured on the 20 Euro coin. Publication History and Census
This map was printed by the K. K. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei (the Imperial Royal State Printing Office) and is attributed to Baron Bernhard von Wüllerstorf-Urbair. It also carries the seal of the Hydrographische Anstalt (Hydrographic Institute) in Vienna. Although it is dated as 1858 and cataloged as such, it likely was printed after the voyage's completion and is cataloged as anywhere between 1857 and 1865 by different institutions. It is held by several libraries and universities in Europe but is scarce to the market.
Cartographer
Baron Bernhard von Wüllerstorf-Urbair (January 29, 1816 – August 10, 1883) was an Austrian naval officer and later Minister of Trade. Wüllerstorf-Urbair was born in Trieste, then ruled by Austria, and later returned to Italy to manage the naval observatory in Venice. He was made captain and Commodore of the Novara for its 1857 – 1859 circumnavigation of the globe, which he wrote about in a book titled Journey of the Austrian Frigate Novara around the Earth in 1857, 1858, 1859 under the command of Commodore B. von Wüllersdorf-Urbair (German title Reise der oesterreichischen Fregatte Novara um die Erde…). More by this mapmaker...
Very good. Some discoloration along fold line and bottom margin.
OCLC 860432248.