1868 Guyot’s Geographical Series: Intermediate Geography. The Earth and Its Inhabitants
DESCRIPTION
This is an 1868 edition of Guyot’s Geographical Series: Intermediate Geography. The Earth and Its Inhabitants, authored by Arnold Guyot and published in New York by Charles Scribner & Co.
The atlas was designed for classroom use, presenting a systematic study of geography through lessons, illustrations, and finely engraved maps. Guyot, a Swiss-American geographer and geologist, was a pioneering figure in 19th-century education, introducing methods that emphasized physical geography and the relationship between natural features and human settlement.
The work contains numerous hand-colored maps of the world and continents, including detailed coverage of Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, Australia, and North America. Each map is presented in both physical and political form, with shaded relief indicating mountain ranges and color-coded boundaries that make territorial divisions easy to understand. Lessons accompany the maps, covering physical geography, climate, vegetation, animals, and cultural characteristics of nations, often illustrated with lively woodcut vignettes. These textual and visual elements were meant to integrate the physical sciences with human geography, a hallmark of Guyot’s approach.
The atlas is especially notable for its maps of the United States during Reconstruction. The national maps depict territories in a transitional state, with one striking feature being the oversized Dakota Territory, which at this time encompasses not only present-day North and South Dakota but also all of present-day Wyoming and the eastern portion of Montana. This depiction reflects the lag between actual territorial organization as Wyoming Territory was created in 1868, and Montana Territory in 1864 and the way boundaries were still presented in contemporary educational cartography. Other western lands such as Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, and Indian Territory are likewise shown with mid-19th century borders, capturing the rapid changes of American expansion and settlement.
In addition to its geographical maps, the book includes extensive descriptive sections on the “Nature” and “Countries” of each continent, illustrated with woodcut vignettes of landscapes, wildlife, and cultural scenes. Engravings such as the Strait of Gibraltar, a chapel in a salt mine in Austria, South American wildlife, and African peoples and animals were designed to educate and inspire curiosity about the world beyond students’ immediate surroundings.
Guyot’s Intermediate Geography is an important educational artifact, reflecting both the progress of American mapmaking and the evolution of classroom instruction in the post-Civil War era.
CONDITION
1200 W. 35th Street #425 Chicago, IL 60609 | P: (312) 496 - 3622