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The Russian Academy of Sciences was created in 1724 in St Petersburg. It was not only intended to coordinate and produce science but also to aid in solutions to practical problems. Many foreign scientists were invited to participate. Joseph Nicolas de l' Isle was invited to head the department of geography and came in 1726. The making of the first atlas Russicus, not surprisingly considering the size of the country, took a long time. New bearings in trigonometry had to be taken all over the country. Existing cartographic material had to be obtained and analysed. Among the Russian scientists that worked on the atlas was Kirilow, the man who published the first map of Russia in 1734. The best known expedition that fed data into the Atlas Russicus was the great Northern Expedition (1735-1743) . Gmelin; Muller; Krshnininnikow; Krasilnikow & Steller were among its participants. Except for reliable data printing facilities were needed. The Academies engraving shop was set up in 1728 with staff as Ellinger; Unversagt; Zubov and Rostovtsev. Eventually in September 1745 the atlas was printed in St Peterburg in Russian, Latin and German. “Sent out to various governments..the atlas met with great praise everywhere” (Bagrow). 
After an unnumbered general map of Russia there are 13 numbered maps that cover European Russia (scale 1; 1.527.000). The other (last) 6 maps cover Asian Russia (Siberia, scale 1: 3.360.000) (Bagrow, pp 190). Apart from the Atlas Russicus, our Composite Atlas has 17 additional maps that can be divided into four groups: City maps (2 sheets: St Petersburg & Moscow); Maps of Turkish war (7 sheets); Maps of Ladoga Lake, St Peterburg, Cronstad and the Finnish gulf (8 maps). All these maps were produced during the first 30 years of the Academy, at the request of interested authorities, and most of them are known in only a few copies, or not described at all. The city maps : In 1739 a plan of Moscow was prepared (Nagrow, Fig 64, page 183) under the supervision of I Michurin. It was engraved, it would seem, by Makhayev in 1741. In 1742 the order was given to add a two page text to the plan (Bagrow) That is the Plan of Moscow & text sheets in our atlas. (rare, not in Fauser) (image see Bagrow, Fig 64). Our plan of St Peterburg (map 21) however precedes these plans. It is known as the Academy Map. It is based on initial drawings by George Wolffgang Krafft (1728) and published by de l Isle in 1737, engraved by Unversagt. (rare, not in Fauser) (image see Fig 26 in Postnikov). There is no doubt the map served as example for Seutters well known map of the city (1744). Maps for the Turkish Campaign : The war against the Turks broke out in 1735. De l' Isle and other cartographers and army officials were sent out to make military maps. Eventually 5 of them were accepted (August 1738) by the Academy and published: three by de l' Isle (our maps 25; 26 & 30) ; one by Frauendorf (our map 27) and another after an original manuscript by Frauendorf (our map 29). According to Bagrow, the Ottens (Amsterdam) published reedited our maps 27 and 29 and added a sheet of explanatory text (our sheet 28). That leaves our map 24, Mare Caspii descriptio, which describes the borders with Turkey as drawn and agreed upon in 1727, and dated in print 1728 as unidentified but probably one of those intermediary prints of the first years of the Academy and possibly based on the detailed map that Moll printed in London in 1727, drawn by the Tsars special command by Carl van Velden in the year 1719, 1720 and 1721. Our map 31: Battle against the Turks 17/08/1739 can not be identified. Maps of Finland, Karelia, Neva, Petersburg, Cronstad & Ladoga : Contemporaries stated (Muller 1761) that a series of maps was published which included Finland, Karelia,Ingria,the Neva and adjacent areas and possibly ended with the map of St Petersburg (our map 21). The series would include (Bagrow, part V, note 18): Lacus Ladoga (our map 32); Sinus Finnicus & Cronstadt (our 35); Fluvius Neva & Lacus Ladoga (our 34); Canalis Ladogensis (our 33); Magnus ducatus Finlandiae (our 39); Ingermanlandii I Karelli (in Russian, our 37) and the same in Latin Ingria et Carelia (our 36). Bagrow mentions the reedition by Seutter of these six maps but ours are the originals. (no additional texts or name of Seutter). The one undetermined map in our atlas then is 38, the siege of Willmannstrandt, august 27, 1741.
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