Carte de la Californie et des Pays Nor Ouest separaes de L’Asie par la Detroit de Anian

Fascinating comparative cartography showing America’s West Coast.

This interesting exercise in comparative cartography was designed by Robert de Vaugondy as part of a map supplement to Diderot’s important work, Encyclopedie. This particular example is from the 1781 edition and shows two separate views of the west cost of North America between the Straits of Anian and the Gulf of California. According to text in the lower left, both images are extracts from maps issued in 1612 and 1642, by Nicholas Visscher, and incorporate information from Gerard Mercator and Petrus Plancius.

Both maps depict topography, hydrological systems and place names that can only be described as contemporary cartographic myths; most notably Quivira (a lost Spanish city of gold) and the wide accessibility of the Anian Strait into the Arctic Circle, which continued to tantalize explorers with the possibility of a navigable Northwest Passage.