The Russian Discoveries from the Map Published by the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg.

1775 Sayer / Müller Map of the North Pacific, Pacific Northwest, and Siberia w/ Proto-Alaska

Publication Date: 1775

About this Item

Very good. Some mat burn in margin and minor creases. Few marginal mends away from printed image. Original outline color. Size 18 x 24 Inches. An attractive example of Robert Sayer's 1775 translation of Gerhard Friedrich Müller's map presented to refute the spurious geography of the Pacific Northwest proposed by the French cartographers Philippe Buache and Joseph Nicolas De l'Isle. The map covers the same area as the 1752 Buache / De l'Isle map, and uses similarly state-of-the-art data from Russian explorers to show their successes in sailing via a Northeast Passage into the Pacific. This map however presents Müller's cartography of the American Northwest in explicit contradiction of the Buache/De l'Isle imaginary Sea of the West, and reliance on the fictional journeys of Admiral De Fonte. Thus, the map includes the North Pacific, including parts of Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, and Northeast Asia. Coverage extends from the Arctic Circle south to the latitudes of Vancouver and Japan. Most dramatically, the map includes a large, speculative peninsula extending westward from North America towards Asia. This, known as the Müller Peninsula, would become the dominant geographical model for the Pacific Northwest coast until the actual exploration of those coastal areas by Captain Cook in the 1770s. The map is also notable for its unusual Bulbous promontory in northern Siberia, an interpretation of the Witsen Peninsula, itself a mismapping of the Chukchi Peninsula. Müller Map and Derivatives Müller's Nouvelle Carte Des Decouvertes Faites Par Des Vaisseaux Russes , published in 1754, was the first official map to reflect the results of Vitus Bering's Great Northern Expedition. The Great Northern Expedition was one of the largest and best organized voyages of exploration, the results of which completely remapped most of the Arctic coast of Siberia and some parts of the Northwest coast of America, filling in vast amounts of previously unknown coastal detail, which previously had been the subject of myth and speculation. Originally conceived by Russian Emperor Peter I the Great, the exploration was undertaken under the auspices of Russian Empresses Anna and Elizabeth, under the direction of the Danish navigator Vitus Bering. Lasting from 1733 - 1743, the expedition was intended to map the eastern reaches of Siberia and map the Northwest Coast of America. Its many accomplishments include the European discovery of Alaska, the Aleutian Islands, the Commander Islands, and Bering Island, as well as a detailed mapping of the northern and north-eastern coast of Russia and the Kuril Islands. The expedition formally ended the myth of a massive land mass in the North Pacific. Smuggled into Paris Following the Bering expedition, Joseph Nicholas de L'Isle, younger brother of the major French cartographer Guillaume de L'Isle, privately published (along with Buache) his interpretation of The Great Northern Expedition's Discoveries. J. N. de L'Isle was employed by the St. Petersburg Royal Academy at the time, but upon his brother's death, quit the position and returned to Paris. He partnered with Phillipe Buache to publish a wildly speculative map of the Pacific Northwest that did much to popularize the mythical of the Sea of the West, and which combined that fictional sea with the equally imaginary journeys of the (also imaginary) Admiral De Fonte, in order to suggest a viable sea passage between the Pacific Ocean and Baffin's Bay, or perhaps even Hudson's. The Russians believed that de L Isle improperly used information he gathered while serving in St. Petersburg at the Royal Academy. Moreover, they were aware of his incorrect delineation of the Northwest Coast of America and were offended that this referenced and demeaned their excellent academic reputation. Irritated by the publication, the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences ordered Gerhard Müller to compile a more accurate map from the complete official accounts of the Great Northern Exped.

Seller Inventory # RussianDiscoveries-sayer-1775

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Russian Discoveries from the Map Published by the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg.
• Publication Date: 1775
• Seller catalogs:
  • ALASKA-HAWAII-MAPS