c. 1773
Maker: Vaugondy / De L'Isle.
Early map with the Sea of the West (Mer de L'Ouest), showing distorted view of the North Pacific, from the Voyages of Admiral de Fonte, in his search for the South Seas. It includes a number of huge lakes and rivers that suggest a possible Northwest Passage, including Lac de Fonte which appears to connect Hudson Bay to the Pacific. This is a Vaugondy copy of an earlier De L'Isle map. It was published in Diderot's Encyclopaedie in c. 1773. In 1752 Joseph Nicholas Delisle published a memoir on what was known of the Pacific Northwest. He said that in 1640 de Fonte, a Spanish Admiral, sailed 5000 miles north from Lima to 53 ° north where he entered a Rio de los Reyes. This took him through a series of waterways until, at the Strait of Ronquillo, he met a ship from Boston commanded by a Captain Shapely. This is a later republication of one of the maps made to accompany Delisle's work. Diderot's maps were one of the first surveys of comparative cartography, tackling a number of the early misconceptions of the west coast of North America and the Northeastern Asian Coastline. Approx. 11.5" x 15" to the neatline. Good restored condition; this map has been archivally cleaned, backed and margins repaired. Image transfer aka ghosting is still visible.
Item Number: EUR684