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In 1874-75, the Russian government sent a research and trading mission to China to seek out new overland routes to the Chinese market, report on prospects for increased commerce and locations for consulates and factories, and gather information about the Dungan Revolt then raging in parts of western China. Led by Lieutenant Colonel Iulian A. Sosnovskii of the army General Staff, the nine-man mission included a topographer, Captain Matusovskii; a scientific officer, Dr. Pavel Iakovlevich Piasetskii; Chinese and Russian interpreters; three non-commissioned Cossack soldiers; and the mission photo...

This map of colonial Guiana (present-day Suriname) is the work of Jan Jansson (died 1664), a Dutch cartographer who married into the Hondius family of illustrious mapmakers. Jodocus Hondius (1563-1612) and his sons, Jodocus and Henricus, engraved maps of the Americas and Europe, and were instrumental in popularizing the work of Gerard Mercator, the developer of the Mercator Projection that allowed navigators to use a flat map reflecting the curvature of the globe. The Hondius family published an early pocket-size atlas of the Mercator map. The atlas series grew under the leadership of Jannson,...

Adrien-Hubert Brué (1786-1832) was a French geographer and cartographer who as a young man accompanied the explorer Nicolas Baudin on his 1800-1803 voyage to New Holland (Australia). Brué returned to France to become an important geographer, associated with the Institut Geographique de Paris and geographer to the king. His Grand atlas universel (Large universal atlas) was first published in 1816 and issued in revised and updated editions in 1825, 1830, and 1838. Shown here is Brué's map of the Ottoman Empire in Europe, Greece, and the Ionian Islands. The Ottoman territories in Europe...

This watercolor by Manuel María Paz (1820--1902) shows the Sierra Nevada del Cocuy (also called Sierra Nevada de Chita or Sierra Nevada de Güicán), as seen from the town of Moreno, Casanare Province (present-day Casanare Department), Colombia. At more than 5,000 meters, these peaks form the highest part of the Cordillera Orientale, the longest and widest of the three Andean mountain ranges. Paz was born in Almaguer in the province of Cauca. He joined the Colombian army at a young age and showed exceptional skills as a cartographer and painter. In 1853 he took over the role of draftsman o...

This photograph is from a collection of 65 projectable lantern slides relating to the Arab Revolt of 1916-18, an important theater of operations during World War I. By supporting the revolt against Ottoman Rule, the British sought to weaken the Ottoman Empire, which was aligned with Germany and Austria-Hungary. For their part, the Arabs hoped to secure independence and create a unified empire embracing the region from Aleppo, Syria to Aden, Yemen. The photographs depict many of the protagonists in this political and military struggle, including Colonel T.E. Lawrence of the British army and the...