Finlayson, J. "North America." From Carey & Lea's "Historical, Chronological, and Geographical American Atlas"

J. Finlayson. "North America." From Carey & Lea's Historical, Chronological, and Geographical American Atlas.

Philadelphia: H.C. Carey & I. Lea, 1822. Map, 14 x 13 1/8; full sheet with text, 16 1/2 x 20 1/2. Engraving by J. Yeager. Full original color. Slight darkening at centerfold. Else, very good condition. 

In 1822, Henry Charles Carey and Isaac Lea published their A Complete Historical, Chronological, and Geographical American Atlas. This volume was based on Emmanuel Las Cases' Atlas Historique of 1803, with updated maps and text modified by Carey, a political economist. He considered himself an American foil to John Stuart Mill and the London economists who were proclaimers of "the gloomy science" influenced by Ricardo and Malthus. Instead of preaching overpopulation and degeneration of the human species, Carey illustrated the nations of the western hemisphere through maps that showed an expanding region with ample promise of developing into lands of great new opportunity and growth. The sheets from this atlas, which cover North America, Central America, South America and the West Indies, are comprised of an engraved map surrounded by text documenting the history, climate, population and et al. of the area depicted.

This map of North America is a very fine example from the atlas. It shows the entire continent at an interesting period in its political development, in particular for the United States. The map was issued just after the Missouri Compromise, so that state is indicated, as is the Arkansas Territory just to the south, extending from the Mississippi to the border with Mexico, which follows the line determined by the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819. Of interest is that Finlayson shows the country as including the entire Missouri Territory extending as far north as where the "Russian Possessions" begin. This region was at the time under joint control by the British and Americans, with the final political settlement, with a border at the 49° parallel, not established until 1846. The text around the side of the map is quite interesting.