Northern Persia; Southern Persia; Afghanistan; Baluchistan.

four-sheet colour map

Four sheets of the Survey of India Southern Asia Series (1912-1945) covering the Gulf, Persia, Afghanistan, Boluchistan, and western India, stretching from Riyadh in the south-west to Bukhara in the north-east. The sheet covering the Arabian Gulf, titled 'Southern Persia', is dated 1912 and shows the main travel routes along the Gulf and into the interior as far as Riyadh with none of the roads being depicted as suitable for wheeled vehicles and totally absent of railways or telegraph lines. Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, and Dubai are all identified.

Sir Sidney Gerald Burrard (1860-1943) initially served in the Survey offices at Dehra Dun before being made Surveyor General in 1908. In 1912 it was his decision to produce a new set of maps which would correct trigonometric errors in previous surveys and give a totally accurate mapping of Arabia and Central Asia, centred on the oil reserves in Persia which Britain had a controlling interest in.

Heliozincographed colour map, four sheets dissected and mounted on linen as one, folding out to 108 x 152 cm in size, scale 1:2,000,000 (1.014 inches to 32 miles), original paper covers with manuscript title label, faint crayon lines confined to the area around Quetta, a couple minor marginal tears repaired, linen a little fragile in a few places, but still a sturdy and attractive copy.