The David Rumsey Map Collection opens up thousands of rare 18th and 19th century maps to the public. There are multiple ways to view and use the maps. In particular, the Luna Imaging's Insight software used to view the maps online is remarkably fast and useful. It's a huge improvement over viewing scanned images inside PDFs.
The collection began about 25 years ago, according to the website, and now makes about 22,000 of the collection's more than 150,000 maps available online.
Inside the collection, every page of the 1979 California Water Atlas and its many maps are available. Viewing a map of San Francisco from 1911 and a map of California and Mexico from 1863 demonstrate the snappy response when viewing the maps in a browser.
In addition to viewing the maps online, "you can embed search results, slide shows, presentations, the LUNA Workspace, media groups, and detail views into other applications," according to the web site.
Hat tip to Resource Shelf for pointing out the collection.
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