Font from a survey chart of the Australian coast from around 1800. I love the way it looks, especially the way the 'l' loops

Question

I want to use this font for the text on a globe of the world.

Answer 1

Maps from this period almost exclusively use engraved lettering, not type. For a digital typeface, see MVB Sirenne, a font family inspired by 18th-century engraved lettering and shares a lot characteristics with this style. You’re on your own for the looped ‘l’, however. That’s a peculiarity of this particular engraver and it’s not common in roman (upright) type.

Comments

On a hunch, I checked out the glyph map—there is an alternate looped l in MVB Sirenne.

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Hah! That’s actually a mathematical symbol or alternate form for “litre”. But sure!

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Because it’s meant to be used with numbers it doesn't space or look the way you’d expect an ‘l’ to look.

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Ah, so that’s why it doesn’t show up when you toggle on the stylistic alternates with preview copy that includes a lowercase l—it’s not considered an alternate for that character.

But, with a bit of scaling. skewing, and kerning, Tim might be able to make it mimic his sample.

Answer 2

Circa 1800, all the type on this map would have been hand engraved, not typeset.

This site specializes in historical map fonts, but a quick look through their offerings didn’t turn up anything that contained that looped l.