Plan de la Baie et du Havre de Casco et des Iles Adjacents...

Paris. Depot General de la Marine. 1779. Strong impression. Bright and clean. On heavy, watermarked paper. Limited outline color. 16 1/4 x 23 1/4." Item #3525

The roots of this attractive -- but hydrographically imprecise -- chart may be traced to Captain Cyprian Southack, who explored Portland harbor in 1698. Southack published his chart in London in 1720 and it appeared, with minor modifications, in many editions of The English Pilot between 1721 and the 1790s. Here it has been appropriated by the French, where it appeared in Neptune Americo-Septentrional at the time of the American Revolution. By the time this French version appeared, the British had vastly superior charts of Casco Bay that were included in The Atlantic Neptune. Sellers & Van Ee, Maps and Charts of North America and the West Indies, 1750-1789: 843 (1780 copy 2, with plate number 9 just above the lower right neat line). For the history of the Southack chart: Osher Map Library, The Cartographic Creation of New England (online catalogue): Part III.

Price: $1,750.00