At the end of the 18th century, some of the finest maps in the world were being produced by Aaron Arrowsmith of London. Item 36 is a 1799 second state of his Chart of the World based on Mercator's Projection… This was partly based on the findings of Captain Cook along with the accumulated knowledge of explorers who had by then filled in most of the gaps missing from western knowledge a few centuries earlier. The continents are all now shown with reasonable accuracy, though a few interior regions remained uncharted territory still. The largest areas still a blank at the time were the interior of Australia, the heart of Africa, and the American Northwest (it would still be five more years before Lewis and Clark would begin their exploration). £20,000 (US $39,670).

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