ILLUSTRATED OFFICIAL HANDBOOK OF THE CAPE AND SOUTH AFRICA

A Resumé of the History, Conditions, Populations, Productions and Resources of the several Colonies, States and Territories

First edition: xvi + 568 + 44 pages of commercial advertisements, coloured folding map torn at first fold, folding photographic panorama of Cape Town, numerous other plates and illustrations, original illustrated brown cloth, insect scarring on the spine and upper cover, hinges split but holding on the netting, a good copy.

John Noble 1836 – 1898. His most important publications aimed at the advancement of science were a series of handbooks on the Cape Colony and other territories in southern Africa. The first, Descriptive handbook of the Cape Colony: its conditions and resources... was published in London in 1875. It included descriptions of the colony's climate, agriculture, pastoral resources, mineral deposits, and industries. Three years later there followed an official handbook entitled The Cape and South Africa (Cape Town, 1878).

In preparation for the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886 he was asked to expand his handbook of 1875 and compiled the Official handbook: history, productions and resources of the Cape of Good Hope (Cape Town, 1886). Though he wrote most of it himself, it included articles by others. Seven years later Noble updated and extended this publication and produced the Illustrated official handbook of the Cape and South Africa (Cape Town, 1893), including additional articles on scientific topics by R. Trimen on the country's vertebrate fauna; D.E. Hutchins on woods and forests; D. Hutcheon* on livestock husbandry; Francis Spencer on gold mining on the Witwatersrand; and Ernest Williams on the coal fields. A second edition of the handbook was published in 1896. https://www.s2a3.org.za/bio/Biograph_final.php?serial=2039