New Zealanders take note: Charting the Peaceful Sea: Maps of the Pacific, 1642-1846 is an exhibition taking place at the Dunedin Public Library until August 30.

Twenty-one maps by more than eleven different explorers are on exhibit, which takes viewers from the first appearance of New Zealand on a map in the seventeenth century through to charts of the fearsome ice barrier of unexplored Antarctica from the mid-nineteenth century. The exacting cartographic work by eighteenth-century explorer Captain James Cook forms a major portion of the exhibition with nine first- and early-edition maps by Cook on display.

Free admission. More details from the Otago Daily Times.

Update, Aug. 21: Still more coverage in today’s (Aug. 21, 2008) Otago Daily Times.