Bombay and Environs. Plate 39 (1893) — The European Gaze on India

Bombay and Environs. Plate 39

Bartholomew, John George · 1893

A map of Bombay and its wider setting from Constable’s Hand Atlas of India. The port city is shown together with its harbour, communications and surrounding terrain, using layer colour to organise elevation.

The atlas plate

Plate 39 was prepared at the Edinburgh Geographical Institute under John George Bartholomew for Constable’s Hand Atlas of India (1893). The atlas drew upon official and other surveys but translated them into compact, commercially published reference plates.

City and hinterland

At approximately 1:340,000, the map links Bombay to the country around it. Roads, railways, settlements, coast and relief show the metropolis not as an isolated plan but as the hub of a regional transport and harbour system.

Layer-coloured relief

Elevation tinting makes physical setting analytically visible. The method belongs to Bartholomew’s modern cartographic style: colour is not chiefly ornament but a coded means of distinguishing height and terrain.

The gaze

Bombay is read as an imperial node—port, railway centre and metropolitan gateway—whose significance lies in the connections between city, harbour and hinterland.

Cartographer

John George Bartholomew

Atlas

Constable’s Hand Atlas of India

Plate

Date

1893

Type

Regional atlas map

Publisher

Archibald Constable & Co.

Place

London

Dimensions

17 × 22 cm

Scale

approximately 1:340,000

Prepared at

Edinburgh Geographical Institute

Local image provenance

Not recorded in the supplied HTML. The matching record below verifies the object, but is not represented as the source of the local JPG.

Matching record identifier

David Rumsey List No. 11794.044

Matching catalogue record

David Rumsey Historical Map Collection (browse record; List No. identifies the item)