Beschreibung:

BUACHE, Philippe (1700-1773). Considérations géographiques et physiques sur les nouvelles découvertes au nord de la Grande Mer. Paris: Acade´mie Royale des Sciences, 1753. The first edition of the magnum opus of eighteenth-century Pacific Northwest geography, in the most desired state with maps separately bound in atlas format. This work brings together significant reports concerning the geography of the Pacific Northwest, including the Russian explorations of coastal Alaska, into a coherent cartographic project. Issued over the course of three years, complete sets are extremely rare. Buache, who married into the Delisle family of cartographers, has been overshadowed somewhat in historical estimation by the Delisles on the one hand, and his successor d’Anville on the other. But Buache was not only highly esteemed by his contemporaries, he was considerably ahead of his time in his approach to cartography. A pioneer of what is now called thematic mapping, he created unusual charts which mapped the tremors of the earth, undersea mountain ranges, and the ocean floor of the English channel. Following his uncle-in-law Joseph-Nicolas Delisle, Buache became a proponent of the existence of the Great Western Sea described in the apocryphal letter of Admiral Bartholomew de Fonte. Despite occasional errors, his maps nevertheless contributed greatly to the history of geography—providing here one of the earliest depictions of the Alaskan peninsula, as well as important new details about Louisiana. Howes B-908 dd; Lada-Mocarski 8; Sabin 8832; Streeter 3451; Wickersham 5916. Text volume, quarto (250 x 189mm) and folio atlas (525 x 385mm). Atlas: 16 engraved maps handcolored in outline, in various sizes (dampstain affecting edge of 2 maps, map of CA cropped slightly on lower edge). Later half calf. Provenance : J.A. Dezauche, mapmaker (late 18th century; bookplate) – David Parsons (bookplate; his sale, Hordern House).