PLATE 6 OF THE GEOLOGY OF RUSSIA (1845): A FINE EXAMPLE OF A HAND-COLORED GEOLOGIC MAP

In 1845, Roderick Murchison, Edouard de Verneuil and Alexander von Keyserling published a two-volume book entitled The Geology of Russia in Europe and the Ural Mountains, reporting on the results of two field seasons in Russia (1840 and 1841) as well as additional fieldwork in Poland (1843) and Scandinavia (1844). The first volume is accompanied by 7 plates of which 5 contain cross-sections and 2 are geologic maps. Plate 6 is a geologic map (~1:5,000,000) titled “Russia in Europe and the Ural Mountains . . .” and it is the subject of this paper. At the time the book was written, British publishing was undergoing a revolutionary change, from hand-press to steam-powered manufacture. Murchison chose to have 600 copies of the large format (quarto) book printed by John Murray in the laborious and expensive hand-press manner. He also decided to produce the 68 x 84 cm map as a copper engraving with water color washes. According to John Thackray (1978), Plate 6 is “the finest hand coloured map ever produced”. The final map was drawn and engraved by John Arrowsmith, 10 Soho Square, from a working map that was begun in 1840, expanded after the 1841 field season, and further modified by incorporating work of other geologists, particularly von Dechen for the German frontier, Zejszner for the Carpathians, Boué for Turkey, Dupois de Montpereux for the Caucusus, Hamilton and Ainsworth for the southern coast of the Black Sea, and Helmersen for the deserts between the Caspian and Aral Seas. All of these sources are meticulously acknowledged by Murchison in The Geology of Russia. In addition to the map itself, Plate 6 also contains a “Tabular View of Russian Deposits” (a stratigraphic column with key locations and characteristic fossils), and a cross-section extending from St. Petersburg in the north to the Sea of Azof in the south. Thus, Plate 6 represents a synthesis of much of what was known in 1845 of the geology of Russia and surrounding territories. Notable aspects of the map, together with an account of its production history, will be discussed in this paper.