Versuch einer Kulturkarte von Brasilien mit besonderer Berüchsichtigung des Haupyvorkommens Spontaner Erzeugnisse

Uncommon agricultural map of Brazil, drawn in Rio de Janeiro in 1883 and published in 1887 in Leipzig. It details the various crops of Brazil (maize, beans, coffee, sugar cane, cotton, etc.). It also highlights the potential of the rubber trees in the Amazon jungle, in the early years of the infamous rubber boom. The author, Rudolph Alexander Hehl, was a German geologist and engineer who emigrated to Brazil in 1859, where he worked in the railway sector. This map was published to illustrate an article titled “Über die vegetabilischen Schätze Brasiliens und seine Bodenkultur” (On the vegetable riches of Brazil and the cultivation of its lands), published in Nova Acta, the journal of the German Leopoldina Academy. The article was much appreciated, and Hehl was awarded a gold medal for it during the South American Exhibition of Berlin in 1886. Hehl’s work afterwards fell largely into oblivion, and the present map remains practically unknown. Rarity: extremely rare on the market, with no record in OCLC / WorldCat.