Colton's Illustrated Cabinet Atlas and Descriptive Geography
Maps by G. W. COLTON. Text by . New YORK: J. H, Colton &. Co. 4 to. pp. 400.
THIS work meets an acknowledged want; it combines in one convenient volume most of the desirable features of the larger atlases, being full enough in detail for all ordinary purposes, without being cumbersome and costly. It is prefaced by a clear and well-digested statement of the laws of Physical Geography, “ based,” as the publishers say, “ upon the excellent treatise on the same subject found in the Atlas of Milner and Petermann, recently published in London.” The maps are one hundred and sixteen in number, admirably engraved, and, what especially enhances their value, they are draughted on easilyconvertible scales,-one inch always representing ten, twenty-five, fifty, one hundred, or other number of miles readily comparable. They include the results of the latest explorations of travellers, and the newest settlements made by the English and Americans.
The descriptions are full and accurate, and the statistics of population, trade, public and private institutions, etc., are convenient for reference. This department is illustrated by over six hundred wood-cuts.
This Atlas may, therefore, fairly claim rank as a Cyclopædia of Geography, and for the household and school it is one of the most useful publications of our time. The attention now everywhere excited by proposed or impending changes in the boundary-lines of European States, by the inroads of Western civilization in the East, by the settlement of the Pacific Islands, and by the growth of empire on the western coast of our own country, renders the publication of a compendious work like this very timely.