Virginiae partis australis et Floridae partis orientalis Nova Descripto

     This beautiful map is by Johannes Janssonius or Jan Janson.   This particular state was published in 1640 and is based on a map by Hessel Gerrisz from 1631, subsequently updated through various explorations.  The map  encompasses an area from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay to Georgia with both France and England's coat of arms representing their interests in regional control.  There is very little difference between this plate by Janson and William Bleau's plate of this map.  Bleua's map, probably unmistakably,   has a longitude of 200 in the bottom right of his map while Janson has the correct number of 300.  What marks this map as scarce 2nd state is the tail on the left cherub in the scale cartouche.  It would be accurate to say Bleau and Janson were staunch competitors as well as an understatement to say they were adversaries.  Mystical lakes and other cryptic geography on this map envelopes the true enthusiasm of explorers at this time only eclipsed by the incredible talents of cartographers to convey their observations.   

     The geographical aspects of the engraving for this beautiful little map was by Nicholas Sanson's landmark map of 1650.  This 1721 map was in "Nouvelle Relation Contenant Les Voyages  De Thomas Cage", one of four volumes.   It is the second of two states with the first in 1694.  The loss at the top right margin is from the tab which connected the folding map to the book itself. The 1694 edition would have the loss at the bottom right.  Sanson's maps depicted California as an island, a long held European conception that the Baja Peninsula was not part of mainland  North America.  The map is part of a text book on light paper which exhibits some ghosting of ink or offsetting when folded for three hundred years. This is typical.  

     This very nice map is by Jean Robert Janvier (1746-1776).  The map is dated 1762 which would have made Janvier age 16 at the date of publication.  It is a first edition map that was later used by Jean Lattre in his 1775 issue of the Atlas Moderne.  The map appears to be a precursor to Janvier's "L'Amerique Septentrionale" also dated 1762 which displays exponentially more northern points of North America as well as part of what is now the Russian Peninsula of Chukotka.  Many of the geographical parts and names are interchangeable with the  two maps.  There are some rather aggressive speculations in the northwest region of this map,  perhaps even more so than later maps with more updated information such as Santini's "Carte des Nouvelles Decouvertes au Nord" of 1776 or Engel's 1765 map of North America.  These geographical risks were taken throughout the age of discovery and create some of the intrigue for maps such as this one.  For instance, the map shows a Lac (lake) des Bois south west of Hudson's Bay.  There is currently a Lac des Bois in Canada that is  northwest of Hudson's Bay.   Archipel St. Lazare on the northwester most part of the map is currently associated with the Marianes and just north of Lazare Archipel lies a notation "Conassetville Indienne",

a term I could only find referenced in Jean de la Harpe's "Histoire Generale".  The Hawaiian Islands were unfounded. Truth be told, the quest for the North West Passage burned for some 400 years and the eighteen and nineteenth centuries were no different.  The fabled voyages, mythical geographies and storied accounts are in this beautiful map by Janvier.   One could think that some of the misappropriations could have to do with deglaciation,  to be fair.

     This eye striking  1776 map is by none other than Antonio Zatta (1757-1797).  Based on earlier observations it delivers current "of the day" geography...and then some.  This map is really about the Northwest Passage and what is behind the Northwest Passage is 500 years of trials and tribulations at the hand of defeat during the body and the height of discovery.   Some voyages credible and some mythical.  It wasn't completely sailed through until Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen did it between 1903 and 1906.  Until 2009, the arctic pack ice prevented shipping most of the year.   For centuries Explorers sought the passage as a possible trade route to Asia.

          One account, of many, interests me in particular.  On the map there is a lake di fonte located at 245 longitude by 60 latitude. The legend of the Admiral De Fonte voyage appeared in a 1706 English publication "The memoirs of the curious".   Although other renown people of the time supported this story, actual accounts of the good Admiral remain elusive as does the lake.

          This route is accessible because of the ending of a 1.2 million year ice age.   I suspect the discoveries of the geography, geology, and biology between the terminal moraines and recession of   glaciers,  like the age of discovery will be considerable.   We live in a unique time in history.  In fact,  a distinction no hominid,  never mind humankind,  has ever been associated with.

     This very detailed 1757 map is by Jacques Nicolas Bellin (1703-1772).   The maps focal point is on Virginia, Maryland and Delaware as part of Pennsylvania but has parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and what is now West Virginia as well. 

     Bellin, at the ripe age of 18 became chief cartographer of the French Navy and twenty years later became official  hydrographer to the King Louis XV.  During Bellin's tenure, the French office became the epicenter for the most accurate and trusted maps and charts in Europe. He was also a Encyclopedistes,  part of a group called philosophes whse members included the likes of Montesquieu,

Voltaire, Rouseau, and Baron d'Holbach.  The Encyclopedistes  compiled a 35 volume Encyclopedie which Bellin contributed 994 articles.   An age where enthusiasm for intellect and pursuit of knowledge dwarfed symbolism.

    This detailed First State 1810  map is by Jean Baptiste Tardieu ( 1746-1816) from the Atlas Supplementaire du Precis de la Geographie.   What predicates this map as First State, among topographical nuances , is the word "LOUISIANE" which is located just south of "SEPTENTRIONALE,"   Latter publications were void of some of these details.  Louisiane was named in honor of King Louis XIV  by French explorer Rene  Robert Cavalier de La Salle,  who put claim to the territory in 1682 after sailing from the Great Lakes via The St. Lawrence and Atlantic to the Mississippi River Delta.  As difficult a journey that must have been,  I would call that a very equitable annex....sight unseen. This ownership was somewhat lengthy but would not last.   Near the end of the Seven Years War, France would relinquish the territory to Spain through the Treaty of Fountainbleau, 1762.  The territory was given back to the French  via treaties  San lldefoso and  Aranjuez,  1800 and 1801 respectively.  Out of need for money for future conquests,  Napoleon and France sold the territory to Jefferson and the United States in 1803 for some 15 million dollars, with current debts absolved, thus the Louisiana Purchase.   There were still a couple of continental swaths outstanding to join the union.  The Mexican territory west of the Rockies and the British colonies garnered by Spain in the 1783  Second Treaty of Paris,  in East and West Florida.  With the end of the Mexican- American war in 1848 came resolve for West of the Rockies,  including the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo which seceded the land to the U.S.   It also included a 15 million dollar payment to Mexico.  History does repeat itself, I thought most of that land was already paid for in that Louisiana Purchase thing?   After many years of negotiations with Spain, the Florida Purchase Treaty of 1819 was drafted which officially put Florida in the hands of the United States. 

      The word Septentrionale comes from the  Latin  word Septentriones  meaning  "of the North".  The boundaries in color represent the entities that owned, colonized or governed them. The United States is in pink,  Britian in orange, Spain in Blue and the green was part of Mexico. 

    This nice old map is by Jacques Nicolas Bellin (1703-1772).  This map was from  his atlas "Histoire general des voyages" published in Paris 1775.  The full title on the map translates to :  Map of the gulf of St. Lawrence and neighboring countries to serve the Generale des Voyages.  The map shows Newfoundland and parts of Acadia. This first state map was engraved by Antoine Francois Prevost.  What makes this a first state map is "Tome XIII" in the lower left margin and "No. 2" in the opposing lower margin.  It was the second plate in a series of the atlas. 

     This 1764 map of the Saint Lawrence River through the Province of Quebec is part of Jacques -Nicholas Bellin's  le petite atlas maritime atlas, which was his most renowned compilation of some 580 maps which detailed coastlines and their associated ports.  He also produced a substantial number of singular maps.  He was hydrographer to King Louis XV of France, a member of the Academie de Marine and Royal Society of London.  Born in Paris 1703 and passed in Versailles 1772.  His body of work speaks volumes about his fifty year endeavor.

    This nicely-detailed chart, with notations, was published in Paris (1758) by Jacques Nicolas Bellin.  What is nice about this map is that it puts into easy perspective the North American northeast coast relative to part of the Asian Peninsula, or what is now  Russia. It embraces how little was charted in the Pacific West.  The map on the Russian side seemingly starts at the Kolyma River and travels  East around Tschutski, and then travels South to Kamchatka and its surrounding islands.   Across the North of the Atlantic Ocean on the American side the map details the Great Lakes and New France (Canada) to the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River.   Although this map was published after Bering and Chirikov's Great Northern Expedition of the region,  it doesn't represent the expedition's discoveries and accurate topographical compilations.  Those discoveries took some time to be published because the commissioner Peter the Great wouldn't allow it for almost a decade. 

      The notations on this map are unique in that I have not seen allocations like these on a 18th century map before. At the middle-most bottom of the page there is reference to earlier explorers and their place of exploration time frames.  Entree' de Jean de Fuca 1592, and Entree' de Martin d'Aguilar 1603, as noted on the map.  Jean de Fuca, born Ioannis Phokas on the Greek Ionian Island of Cefalonia (1536), is best known for his exploration of the Strait of Anian, now known as the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State.  His passing was at his place of birth in 1602.  Martin Aguilar was a Spanish explorer who was one of the first to record the coast of what is now Oregon.  Two ships set out in 1602 with one ship Tres Reyes commanded by Aguilar and the other by Sebastian Vizcaino.  Their ships were separated during a storm and it is reported Vizcaino went as far as the Oregon- California border while it is thought that Aguilar continued to Coos Bay.   He turned back to Mexico because scurvy was impairing his crew.   No organized or commissioned exploration of the coast took place for nearly another 150 years.

      There are a number of other notations on this map that lingually are alluding me.  I would say my 18th century French would be rusty if it weren't nonexistent.

     This highly detailed map by Jacques Nicolas Bellin was published in 1757.  Bellin (1703-1772) was one of the leading mapmakers of the 18th century, and in fact as Official Hydrographer of the French King Louis XIV he made the Depot des Cartes  the leader in scale production and accuracy in all of Europe.  The chart shows the Isle Saint Jean (Prince Edward Island) and Nova Scotia, including Isle Royale (Cape Bretton Island) and was part of his "Petite Atlas Maritime".  

     The Passamaquoddy and Mi' Kmag People were indigenous to the area before Pierre Du Gua, Sieur de Monts,  and Samuel de Champlain created the first European settlement.   Acadia was formed, in due to  de Monts and Champlain in 1604 on isle Sainte-Croix on the Saint Croix river.  To say the winter of 1604-1605 for the eighty settlers was challenging would be an understatement.  Thirty-six died of Scurvy. The next year the colonists moved to Isle Royale (Cape Bretton) and in 1607,  de Monts and some of  the remaining settlers returned to France. The French didn't return to the area until 1610.  The French settlers in this part of new France became known as Acadians.

      Fast forwarding through the six colonial wars that took place in Acadia with the territory subsequently landing to British control after the "War of Spanish Succession" (1701-1713) ,  we end with the D'eportation des Acadiens,  the deportation of the Acadians.  With British expansion and rule in the area, tensions grew among the natives, the Acadians and the new British establishment pressing for the change in geographical ownership and governance.  A proposal  by Governor Charles Lawrence was, after some refusal,  accepted by representatives of the Acadian Nation.  In some venues, history maintains Charles' moral authority was overwhelmed by political pressure.  The deportation started in 1755 and lasted to 1762 .  Acadiens were shipped to English colonies along the  seaboard with some ending up in southern states finding their way to Louisiana where "Cajun" was founded.  Many died on ships during  the travel and others, one could imagine, struggled with  being  uprooted and sent a couple thousand miles to nowhere they knew, with the little they had.  It is believed some 2,500 or so Acadians managed avoidance and remained in Canada.

     A rare map of Alaska before it was Alaska.  The engraving is so crisp and beautifully done it is hard to believe it was struck in 1837.... because it was done via early lithography.  A method of printing using the immiscibility of oil and water invented thirty years earlier by German author Alois Senefelder.  The French gentleman who put this map together or "dressee" as it were was  Charles V. Monin ( ?-1880 ).

He was one of the first to use this process in an atlas and this map appears in his "L'UNIVERS" atlas

of 1837.  The map shows Siberia, Canada, part of the arctic circle and what is now Alaska.  The map shows Great Bear and Great Slave lake which are the two largest landlocked lakes in Canada to which

both drain into the Mackenzie River, also on this map.  The Mackenzie which is the largest River in Canada and carries the majority of the Arctic watershed northwest to the Beaufort Sea in The Arctic ocean.

      This map shows a clear Northwest Passage, in fact a couple of them.  It almost looks like you could  take a motor boat and rummage through without portage  in a couple of months.  Some 28% of Canada is still unexplored never mind charted.  The map notes a fraction of Banks Island, seemingly devoid of Victoria Island and seems to be missing dozens north in the Queen Elizabeth Island Archipelago to name a few which would have made navigation difficult but it was probably the ice up until the 20th century which created the most havoc in procuring a Northwest Passage.   

      The United States bought Alaska from Russia March 30, 1867. The Alaska Treaty with Russia was negotiated by Secretary of State William Seward and Russian Minister to the U.S. Edouard Stoeckl for $7.2 million USD.

     This highly sought after circa1851 map is published by John Tallis (1817- 1876.)  John and his brother Frederick started a publishing company in the ward of Cripplegate, London in 1842 but after a move to Smithfield, it was dissolved in 1849.  This map was produced and published under John Tallis & Company which operated from 1851 to 1854.  The map was drawn and engraved by  John Rapkin  (1815-1876.)   The beautiful vignettes that adorn this map  were illustrated by  John Marchant and engraved by John Rogers.  It took a number of Johns to produce this beautiful map. 

      This a steel engraved map.  Note, not only the accuracies of the up to date topography but the tolerances allowed by the advantages of steel engravings.  Although, in the map, Texas was almost geographically what it is today and most of the midwestern states, California and Washington State  were still to become states. Oregon became a U.S. territory in 1848 and in 1859 the Southwest portion was admitted to the Union as the State of Oregon.