Rhode Island entworfen von D.F. Sotzmann. Hamburg bey Carl Ernst Bohn 1798 . . . NO.V

Extremely rare map of Rhode Island prepared by Daniel Friedrich Sotzmann for Christopher Ebeling's "Erdbeschreibung von Amerika", a project ended after only ten maps of America were completed, the series is discussed in Chapter 11 of Ristow.
This was the largest scale map of the series. This map is quite detailed showing roads meeting houses, shipyards, ponds as well as soundings in the surrounding waters.

Engraved by H.Kliewer. The Atlas was to accompany Ebeling's seven volume "Erdbeschreibung und Geschichte von Amerika, die vereinten Staaten Von Amerika". Sotzmann completed only 10 maps of an intended 18 - Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Massachusetts in 1796, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland & Delaware (1 sheet) in 1797, Maine in 1798, and New York in 1799.

Sotzmann made use of the American maps of the period by Carey, Blodget, Belknap, Howell, Carleton, De Witt, Griffith, and others. Sotzmann's maps are highly detailed with symbols for churches, roads, court houses, distilleries, iron works, mills, academies, county lines, town lines, and more.

They are also very rare - only a few institutions have all ten maps that were published.

Daniel Sotzmann was a German cartographer and was active for the "Akademie der Wissenschaft" in Berlin in 1786. Between 1783 and 1806 he produced a number of district, province and city maps of Germany in association with Carl Ludwig Oesfeld. Their work laid the foundations for the cartographic style used by many German cartographers throughout the nineteenth century.
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