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North America. MOLL, H. [London, 1715/ 1731] A New and Exact Map of the Dominions of the King of Great Britain on ye Continent of North America. ... By Herman Moll Geographer. ... 39 5/8 x 23 7/8 inches. Rich original color with the beaver vignette in gouache; a few marginal mends, another virtually invisible mend into title, else excellent. A splendid, original-colored example of one of the most famous maps of North America and one of the first to focus on the English North American colonies. We have not encountered another example with color as rich as found here. The map is colloquially known after the well-known vignette on it of zoologically incorrect beavers engineering a dam with the Niagara Falls in the background. This is a charming homage to an animal whose pelt was long a cornerstone of the colonial economy. Moll's maps "were published as pictorial counterclaims to offset earlier maps by Delisle (with claims favorable to France)” (Schwartz). Moll was perhaps the most aggressive proponent of English territorial claims in cartographic form. "This beautifully designed map, with its insets, gives a great deal of information about the Carolina region" (Cumming), including the names of original settlers and settlements. One inset map contains a plan of Charleston with a key containing 20 locations, while another in the lower left shows Georgia and notes the populations of various Indian tribes and settlements. Moll’s is also the earliest map to describe the postal system of the English colonies. Schwartz/Ehrenberg, p. 135, pl. 78; Cumming, Southeast no. 158; Tooley, America, no. 55c, p. 87; E. Dahl "The Original Beaver Map," The Map Collector, no. 29.
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