Plate V in the Atlas Designed to Illustrate Burritt’s Geography of the Heavens, by Elijah Hinsdale Burritt

Plate V in the Atlas Designed to Illustrate Burritt’s Geography of the Heavens, by Elijah Hinsdale Burritt

C.1835

Hand Colored Engraving

This piece is a hand-colored engraving titled "Plate V", published in 1835 by F. J. Huntington in Hartford, Connecticut, as part of Elijah Hinsdale Burritt's pioneering Atlas Designed to Illustrate the Geography of the Heavens. The map is mathematically designed to showcase the relative positions of prominent late-summer and early-autumn constellations including Cygnus (The Swan), Sagittarius (The Archer), Scorpius (The Scorpion), and Ophiuchus (The Serpent Bearer). Visually, the chart is defined by elaborate, dynamic mythological figures drawn over a grid-work of right ascension and declination lines, bounded by a yellow and red bordered outer scale calibrated for coordinates and months of observation. 

First issued in Hartford in 1833, Burritt’s atlas was created as a highly accessible educational tool to accompany his textbook, The Geography of the Heavens. Elijah Hinsdale Burritt (1794–1838) was an American mathematician and astronomer nicknamed the "Blacksmith Astronomer" due to his early mechanical apprenticeship. He structured these specific charts based heavily on the artistic layout style of the 17th-century French Jesuit scientist Ignace-Gaston Pardies, heavily modernizing the coordinate scales for contemporary classroom use. This chart is incredibly important to cartographic history because it represents the first major, mass-produced celestial atlas created specifically for American schools. Prior to Burritt's publication, astronomy instruction relied heavily on foreign imports; his work democratized stargazing for hundreds of thousands of students and laid the foundation for popular astronomy education in the United States. 

Dimensions: H 16” X 14” W

Condition: Slightly toned with age, small tears on the sides