. English: A truly fascinating 1772 map of the northwestern parts of North America by Robert de Vaugondy. Essentially depicts the north eastern parts of Asia, speculations on northwestern America and Admiral De Fonte’s mythical conception of a Northwest Passage. Heavily based upon earlier work by Thomas Jefferys, Thomas Swaine Drage, Gerhard Muller, and James De Lisle. Vaugondy prepared this map prior to the voyages of James Cook to this region. Around this time Europe was rampant with speculation both regarding the existence of a Northwest Passage and the northwestern parts of America in gen
. English: A truly fascinating 1772 map of the northwestern parts of North America by Robert de Vaugondy. Essentially depicts the north eastern parts of Asia, speculations on northwestern America and Admiral De Fonte’s mythical conception of a Northwest Passage. Heavily based upon earlier work by Thomas Jefferys, Thomas Swaine Drage, Gerhard Muller, and James De Lisle. Vaugondy prepared this map prior to the voyages of James Cook to this region. Around this time Europe was rampant with speculation both regarding the existence of a Northwest Passage and the northwestern parts of America in general. The discoveries of Admiral de Fonte and Juan de Fuca though now known to be entirely mythical, inspired the European imagination. Barthlomew de Fonte was supposedly a Spanish Admiral who, sailing up the Pacific coast c. 1640 discovered a series of gigantic lakes, seas, and rivers heading eastward towards the Hudson Bay. Supposedly, upon one of these great inland lakes, he met with a ship from Boston that claimed to have come through a Northwestern Passage. De Fonte’s story appeared in a short lived 1706 English publication entitled “Memoirs of the Curious”. The story inspired no less than Joseph-Nicholas de L’Isle, younger brother of the better known Guilleme de L’Isle. Joseph-Nicholas, at the time, was employed by the Russian Tzar Peter the Great in the compilation of Russian surveys and discoveries in Siberia and the extreme northeast of Asia. When he published his somewhat accurate map of northeast Asia, he paradoxically decided to include with it an entirely speculative map of North America based largely on De Fonte’s letter. De L’Isle’s mantle was later taken up by Jefferys, another ardent supporter of the Northwest Passage theory, in his own map of the region, which was, ultimately, the inspiration for this map by Vaugondy. In accord with De Fonte’s suggestions this map displays the strait of Juan de Fuca continuing inland past the large lakes of
Size: 2458px × 2033px
Photo credit: © The Picture Art Collection / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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