This map is based on the landmark Lewis Evans map of 1755 considered to be the first map to push the boundaries of cartography beyond the Appalachian Mountains. This derivative by the Bowles family has been updated and includes amongst other alterations a “Western Territory” south of Lake Erie and the new State of Kentucky. Tennessee is also marked. Indiana is reduced to an area near present day West Virginia. With an inset upper left extending the map to the Mississippi River and Lake Michagan. All in all a fascinating map.

In about 1780 Carington Bowles first published “Bowles’s Universal Atlas”. An example of this edition appears to be in the Library of Congress. It was quite possibly intended to be a smaller and more manageable version of Kitchin’s “General Atlas” first published in 1773. Those maps were often multi sheet and folding making their use difficult. In the Bowles atlas the majority of the maps are single sheet. Bowles appears to have re-issued the atlas with revisions just prior to his death in 1793. He was succeeded by his son Henry Carington Bowles (1763-1852) who shortly after formed a partnership with Samuel Carver. The firm was renamed Bowles and Carver and continued trading at No. 69 St. Pauls Churchyard. Most publications by this firm are rare and “Bowles’s Universal Atlas” is no exception. Undated as before the atlas is usually ascribed the date of 1798 or thereafter based on internal evidence. Refer Shirley “Atlases in the British Library” T.Bowl 2a; Tooley’s Dictionary of Mapmakers; McCorkle, B.B. (New England) 760.3 (state 6); Schwartz “Mapping of America” pp. 153-4; Stevens “Lewis Evans and His Map” pp. 37-9; not in Stevens and Tree; Brown Early Maps of the Ohio Valley 41; Degrees of Latitude 34.