It's hard to even describe the publication of Levi Walter Yaggy's Geographical Study as a book. It was rather a collection of geographical maps and scientific illustrations that ranged from two to four feet wide, plus a guide to teaching from them, inside an ornate wooden box. The box also contained an attached relief map of the United States made of plaster and papier-mâché. The illustrations are gorgeous and varied. Some are landscapes, while others chart the stars in the sky, and still others are cutaways and illustrations of the underground or the deep sea. Some have different layers that could be adjusted or removed to show different aspects of some earth science concept.
Yaggy was not primarily an illustrator. He founded Western Publishing in Chicago and was very successful selling books. He was also a writer an an inventor. Yaggy took his Geographical Study directly to teachers, who were so impressed with the quality, size, and beauty of "Yaggy's maps" that they bought the collection in droves. The maps and illustrations contain plenty of scientific errors, even for the time they were produced. But they were works of art, and were incorporated into many classroom lessons. Read about Yaggy and his maps at The Public Domain Review, and see a gallery of the images from the collection. -via Moss and Fog