A General Chart of the World on Mercators Projection exhibiting all the New Discoveries and the Tracks, of the different Circum Navigators.

Scarce, detailed early edition of this  c.19th hand coloured engraved map of the world on Mercator’s Projection showing Captain James Cook’s tracks of his voyages 1773-1784 and the tracks of the 1773 Phipps expedition towards the North Pole in the Racecourse and Darkness.

The Phipps expedition was instigated after papers presented to the Royal Society by Daines Barrington suggesting the practicality of approaching the North Pole. A Royal sanction was obtained in 1773 with two ships under the commands of Constantine John Phipps and Skeffington Lutwidge which sailed towards the North Pole in the summer of 1773. On board was a young Horatio Nelson. Scientific results of the journey include the first scientific description of the polar bear and the ivory gull.

From Stockdale, J. Atlas to Cruttwell’s Gazetteer. London 1800