Map of the Principal Rivers Throughout the World

“Comparative Lengths of the Principal Rivers throughout the World.”

This informative 19th-century atlas sheet presents a visual comparison of the longest rivers across the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa. The last continent, still largely unexplored, notes significant uncertainty regarding the course of the Congo and Niger Rivers. In America, the recent efforts of Lewis and Clark have apparently given the U.S. claim to the longest river in the world, though the Missouri is added to the length of the Mississippi to collectively surpass the Amazon. The Yangtze, Asia’s longest river and the third-longest in the world, is omitted entirely! Annotations within the image and blocks of text surrounding provide additional details on the sources used, geographic scope, and local history.

The graph was drawn by Fielding Lucas, Jr. and engraved by J. Yeager for inclusion in the 1822 (first) edition of Carey & Lea’s Complete Historical, Chronological, and Geographical American Atlas. This important American publication was issued in six separate editions and three different languages between 1822 and 1827. It was heavily influenced by an earlier European atlas by Emmanuel Las Cases (published under the pseudonym A. Lesage), which inspired the format of a base map surrounded by blocks of informative text and tables of statistics.

Henry Carey, a political economist and the son of prominent publisher Matthew Carey, and his brother-in-law Isaac Lea incorporated this novel theme into their atlas, which focused entirely on the countries of the Western Hemisphere. It was issued at a time of tremendous political change in both North and South America, and the detailed maps accompanied by extensive text provide a unique, often insightful, perspective on the problems and possibilities of the Americas in the first quarter of the 19th century.