HEMISPHERE SEPTENTIONAL pour voir plus destinctement LES TERRES ARCTIQUES & HEMISPHERE MERIDIONAL pour voir plus distinctement LES TERRES AUSTRALES (pair)

Delisle was an important French cartographer of the early 18th century. He held the position of First Royal Geographer to the King. Two fascinating and unusual map mondes of the antipodes of the Arctic and Antarctic Hemispheres. A handsome pair of hemispherical maps, showing the routes of the major explorers - Tasman Magellan, Dampier and others, and revealing the limits of geographical knowledge in the early 17th century- the Solomon Islands are shown twice, New Guinea runs into Australia, the coasts of Australia and New Zealand are fragmented, and Antarctica is still undiscovered. A note at top left concerns the discoveries to the south of the Cape of Good Hope by Bouvet in 1739 with a map in the lower right hand corner of ‘Cap de la Circoncision’, now known as Bouvet Island. To be sold as a pair. The maps are shown from the Artic or Antarctic circles in the centre and the continents surrounding them. The Northern map has the Polar (or Arctic) Circle as well as the Tropic of Cancer and extends to the land as far as the Equator. The Southern map has the Antarctic Circle and the Tropic of Capricorn up to the Equator.

Both in very good condition - southern map has off-setting in upper margin but not affecting image. Northern map has minor off-setting on image.