Superb, large map of South America filled with information concerning various discoveries, expeditions, and colonization. In the Pacific, the routes of Magellan, Schouten & Le Maire, Mendana & Gallego, Sarmiento and Drake are shown. Large keys provide information about the political divisions and the Capitanias of Brazil. Extensive notations exhibit the extent of exploration in the interior.
The map appeared in Chatelain's monumental Atlas Historique.
Henri Abraham Chatelain (1684-1743) was a Huguenot pastor of Parisian origins. Chatelain proved a successful businessman, creating lucrative networks in London, The Hague, and then Amsterdam. He is most well known for the Atlas Historique, published in seven volumes between 1705 and 1720. This encyclopedic work was devoted to the history and genealogy of the continents, discussing such topics as geography, cosmography, topography, heraldry, and ethnography. Published thanks to a partnership between Henri, his father, Zacharie, and his younger brother, also Zacharie, the text was contributed to by Nicolas Gueudeville, a French geographer. The maps were by Henri, largely after the work of Guillaume Delisle, and they offered the general reader a window into the emerging world of the eighteenth century.