Physicist Christlieb Funk drew on a seventeenth century tradition when he commissioned Georg Frentzel to engrave a fan-shaped chart of the southern hemisphere that, when cut, could be used to construct a conical shaped hemisphere, one half of a double-conical shaped globe, or "coniglobe". The terrestrial cones were first published in Funk's 'Anweisung zum Gebrauch der Erdkegel und Erd- planisphären, oder einer Vorstellung der Erdoberfläche auf der äusern Flächey der vorher her- ausgegebnen Sternkegel' (1781)

The chart shows the tracks of Cook's first voyage, and gives a rough outline of his discoveries. Australia, labeled "Neu Holland", is should as a complete outline, with Tasmania attached to the mainland.

Funk's first "coniglobes", printed in 1777, were celestial, and depicted "the northern and southern starry skies according to Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr and could be transferred to the interior of a cone. In a second, larger cardboard cone, an hour scale was glued to the interior edge. The celestial cone was then fitted into a support cone in such a manner that it could be turned. To be able to turn it, it was possible to insert a pin thread that had been glued into the tip of the cone to the end of which a pearl could be attached was used as the meridian. The stars were coloured and their brightness was distinguished by size ranking from the first to the sixth order. To use the celestial cone, one had to hold it in front of oneself with one's arms stretched out while looking towards the sky at the same time. If one turned the celestial cone around its tip, one could track the movements of the stars in the sky on the small model" (Christoph)

"The terrestrial cones fit on the exterior of the celestial cones, which had been published back in 1777, but it was also possible to position them on a new cone. Georg Friedrich Jonas Frentzel (1754-1799) created the copper engraving. The hour circle and the graduated scale of the equator were located on the edge. It was possible to transfer the hour circle to a support cone separately. The cartographic depiction was kept extremely simple and made an antiquated impression. The lines of larger rivers were drawn in and major mountain ranges were represented by graphically differentiated individual symbols. The coordinates and names of the towns shown had been derived from maps by Didier Robert de Vaugondy (1723-1786) and Georg Forster (1754-1794). Nowaja Semlja was already depicted in two parts, while Australia and Van Diemens Land were still shown as a single unit" (Christoph).

The mapmaker
Christlieb Benedikt Funk (1736-1786), natural philosopher at the University of Leipzig from 1733.