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Description

Rare map of North America, published in Paris by Pierre Bourgoin.

Depicts North America and the West Indies with a good amount of detail except in the west, which is mostly blank and labeled Quivira with the coastline ending at N'lle Albion.

Among the most interesting features of the map is a section identified as "Cotes decouvertes par Midelton en 1742," a reference to the discoveries of Christopher Middleton.

Christopher Middleton was an English naval officer and navigator. In 1741, Middleton was appointed to an expedition to explore the North American Arctic regions aboard the HMS Furnace, accompanied by a smaller vessel, that he purchased HMS Discovery under the command of Commander William Moor. The expedition sailed in May 1741 to Hudson Bay, in search of a Northwest Passage. Middleton spent the winter at Churchill, Manitoba. He then proceeded north into Roes Welcome Sound and discovered Wager Inlet, where he was iced in for three weeks. At the head of the sound he was blocked by ice and named the place Repulse Bay. He returned to England in 1742, where he was presented with the Copley Medal by the Royal Society, and where he presented a paper on "The extraordinary degrees and surprising effects of Cold in Hudson's Bay".

A fascinating note regarding the "suspect" discoveries of Admiral De Font reads:

Dans cette partie en avoit nuse les pretendues decouvertes de Amiral Font la relation en ayant ete trouve suspected par pluseures Auteurs on na pas cru deoire les mettre dans cette carte, dans la Mappemonde elles sont pointeas en attendant la verification.
(In this part, the pretended discoveries of Admiral De Font have been shown. The reports of these discoveries was found to have been suspect by several authors. They have not been included on this map, but on the world map are shown, subject to verification).

The map is apparently very rare. OCLC locates only a single example. We date the map based upon the Christopher Middleton reference, as the map would seem to pre-date the 7 Years War and Bellin's map of North America, published for Charlevoix. Bourgoin was active as early as 1740.