Makes me think of the Histomap, designed in 1931. It's an attractive design for history over a timeseries: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/...

In 1942 he did one for Evolution which is closer to your pitch (log scale Y axis, etc): https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~2...