Geography rediscovered at The Portico

Over the past two years, the cataloguing project has uncovered many forgotten treasures on the Library’s shelves, but a particularly exciting discovery was made last week: an entire section of geography books, which had never been added to the card index, and as a result had remained inaccessible to researchers for the past thirty years.

Although the Geography section was listed in the Library’s alpha-numerical classification system under the letter ‘Z’, when the card index was created around thirty years ago, this section was somehow overlooked. As a result, none of the books could be searched for, and they had been left to languish in the stacks ever since.

Despite being a comparatively small section within the Library’s collection, it includes some particularly notable texts that would be of great fascination to those with an interest in the subject, and invaluable to researchers looking into the history and development of geography as a scientific discipline.

A fine example is a 3 volume set written by the eminent Scottish antiquarian and cartographer, John Pinkerton, and published in 1807. Entitled Modern geography: a description of the empires, kingdoms, states, and colonies; with the oceans, seas, and isles; in all parts of the world: including the most recent discoveries, and political alterations, the text opens with a detailed reflection on geography as a discipline of study, and proceeds to provide a comprehensive geographical description of the world. Pinkerton is often credited as having been a particularly influential figure in the development of cartography, exchanging the elaborate cartouches and fantastical beasts used during the 18th century in preference for greater accuracy of detail, and this is clearly displayed in the array of maps found throughout these volumes.

Alexander von Humboldt’s Cosmos: sketch of a physical description of the universe, is another fascinating text discovered within this section.  Hugely popular when it was first released in 1845, Humboldt’s work attempted to apply the ancient Greek view of the orderliness of the cosmos (the universe) to the Earth, suggesting that universal laws could also be applied to the apparent chaos of the terrestrial world. Although many of the ideas contained in the work became somewhat outdated with the advancement of the natural sciences, it made a significant contribution to scientific progress in its conception of the unity of science, nature, and mankind. 

A particularly visually arresting volume is a first edition of Ferdinand von Hochstetter’s New Zealand: its physical geography, geology, and natural history, with special reference to the results of government expeditions in the provinces of Auckland and Nelson. In 1859 Hochstetter was employed by the government of New Zealand to undertake a rapid geological survey of the country, the publication of this beautifully illustrated volume in 1867 provided a more accessible account of Hochstetter’s findings that would be more palatable to the general public.