This is a scarce, reduced-size version of the Delisle/Buache map of Alaska and the North Pacific. The map was initially drawn while Joseph Nicolas Delisle was in the service of Peter the Great in Russia. It depicts the discoveries of the Russians in 1723, 1732, and 1741, the tracks of Bering's first and second voyages, Joseph Nicolas Delisle's voyage with Capt. Tchirikow in 1741, the track of De Frondat's voyage of 1709, and the route of the Galleons in 1743. But more importantly, it features the imaginary cartographic theories of Philippe Buache with whom Delisle first published this map in 1750. The west coast of North America is entirely fictitious north of Cap Blanc with an enormous Sea of the West and Lac Valasco. A network of rivers and lakes, making up most of a Northwest Passage, is derived from the apocryphal voyages of the Spanish admiral Bartholome de Fonte. The title cartouche is flanked by a native of Kamchatka in the upper left corner and a native of Louisiana in the upper right corner. Leonahard von Euler worked with Delisle in St. Petersburg and was associated with the preparation of the Atlas Russicus in 1745. He returned to Berlin where his Atlas Geographicus was published for the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences in 1753, with subsequent edition in 1756 and 1760.

References: McGuirk #26; Kershaw #1203; Phillips #625-44.

Condition: B+

A nice impression on a bright sheet with several small worm holes, the largest of which have been backed on verso with old paper and archival tape. There are a few short archivally repaired edge tears at bottom and a small chip in the top right corner that has been replaced with old paper.