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Remarques Sur la Navigation de Terre-Neuve a New-York afin d’euiter les Courrants et les bas-fonds au Sud de Nantuckett et du Banc de George
Paris: George Louis le Rouge, [ca. 1780–1783]. Engraving, 12” x 14.25, sheet size 18.75” x 24.25”, deckled edges, as issued. CONDITION: A beautiful, un-trimmed copy, never folded, with expert extension of paper, 1/4 to 1/2 inch wide, along a 6.5 inch section of the top edge of the sheet where the deckled edge dipped somewhat deeper than elsewhere, light soiling to verso. The earliest obtainable chart of the Gulf Stream, issued in Paris in the early 1780s at the initiative of Benjamin Franklin, incorporating the knowledge of Franklin’s cousin, Nantucket whaling captain Timothy Folger. This rare and fascinating chart represents the Gulf Stream as a great river within the sea flowing from the Straits of Florida northward along the east coast before turning east toward Europe. Extended “Remarks” at the upper right offer sailing directions for vessels traveling from Newfoundland to New York, advising mariners how to avoid both the Gulf Stream and the famously hazardous shoals south of Nantucket. The depiction of North American geography is oddly archaic—Georgia, for instance, is unidentified—because the chart was adapted from a much earlier base map first engraved in London roughly eighty years earlier. Franklin’s curiosity about the Gulf Stream long preceded the publication of the chart. As early as 1726, during a return voyage from London to Philadelphia, he observed abrupt variations in water temperature and color, along with floating masses of “gulf-weed,” and was puzzled that the ship’s officers dismissed what he regarded as clear signs of a powerful current. Over the following decades he revisited the question repeatedly. In a 1746 letter to Cadwallader Colden he speculated on the reason westbound crossings from England to America were typically slower than the return voyage eastward, tentatively attributing the difference to the earth’s rotation (a conjecture not entirely incorrect). His earliest known use of the phrase “Gulph Stream” appears in a 1762 letter (cited in de Vorsey) in which he discusses Atlantic navigation and refers to “a strong Current called by Seamen the Gulph Stream.” The chart itself grew out of a practical problem in 1768, when Franklin—then serving in London as Deputy Postmaster General for the American colonies—was asked by Postmaster General Anthony Todd to explain why British mail packets sailing from Falmouth to New York routinely arrived later than ordinary merchant vessels bound for Rhode Island. Franklin consulted his cousin Timothy Folger, an experienced Nantucket whaling captain. Folger immediately identified the cause: the Gulf Stream. Nantucket whalers were well acquainted with the current, he explained, since they hunted whales along its margins, whereas British packet captains, unfamiliar with it, frequently sailed straight into the opposing flow. At Franklin’s urging, Folger sketched the current from memory and practical experience, indicating its breadth, course, and strength, and added written instructions for avoiding it while also steering clear of the dangers of Nantucket Shoals and Georges Bank. On October 29, 1768 Franklin forwarded Folger’s chart and remarks to Todd, recommending that the relevant section be engraved and distributed to packet captains. Rather than produce an entirely new chart, however, the Post Office adopted a more economical solution: the London firm of Mount & Page was asked to incorporate the Gulf Stream and Folger’s remarks onto an existing chart originally engraved by Herman Moll and published by Mount & Page around 1702–1705. The resulting chart appeared by early 1769 but seems to have been printed only in very small numbers for use aboard packet ships rather than for public sale. It is now exceedingly rare—so much so that for many years it was thought lost until two copies were discovered in the collections of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Franklin was not alone among his contemporaries in investigating the Gulf Stream. Around the same time, William Gerard De Brahm, working independently in British Florida, was also charting the current and published an important representation of it in The Atlantic Pilot (1772). There is, however, no indication of direct collaboration between De Brahm and Franklin: the two do not appear to have corresponded, and De Brahm’s work arose from his official duties as Surveyor General of the Southern District of North America. The present Le Rouge issue belongs to Franklin’s years in France and marks a second phase in the chart’s history. Franklin first encountered the Paris map publisher Georges-Louis Le Rouge in September 1780 while residing at Passy as American Minister to France. The two soon developed a professional relationship. By that time Le Rouge had established himself as a prolific publisher of maps of North America, many adapted—or occasionally pirated—from English originals, which Franklin apparently helped him acquire. Although no surviving letter explicitly refers to the Gulf Stream plate, circumstantial evidence strongly suggests that Franklin had Le Rouge engrave it shortly after the Treaty of Paris, likely with the aim of supplying French merchantmen or packet captains sailing between France and the newly independent United States. Le Rouge’s engraving closely reproduces the northwest quadrant of the 1769 Mount & Page chart, retaining its outdated geography of North America while translating the sailing directions into French and adding the Le Rouge imprint. The chart is known in four forms: 1. A previously unrecorded proof state, lacking the Le Rouge imprint at lower right, surfaced some years ago offered by Ruderman Rare Maps. 2. Franklin appears to have presented copies to members of his family after returning to America, many bearing autograph inscriptions. Several of these inscribed examples are preserved in American institutional collections. 3. Le Rouge also incorporated the chart into his extremely rare Pilote Neptune Septentrionale, whose examples are identifiable by a vertical centerfold. 4. A small group—perhaps fifteen to twenty impressions—remained unbound and were never issued in atlas form, as with the present example. These surfaced during the early twentieth century, passed through the hands of a European dealer, and were later acquired by The Old Print Shop, which dispersed them gradually over several decades. A landmark chart involving Benjamin Franklin, Nantucket whaling, delayed transatlantic mail, and the scientific exchange fostered by Franco-American relations. REFERENCES: Cohn, Ellen R. “Benjamin Franklin, Georges-Louis Le Rouge and the Franklin/Folger Chart of the Gulf Stream,” Imago Mundi Vol. 52 (2000), pp. 124–142; Pritchard & Taliaferro, Degrees of Latitude #62; Richardson, Philip L. “Benjamin Franklin and Timothy Folger's First Printed Chart of the Gulf Stream,” Science Vol. 207, No. 4431 (Feb. 8, 1980), pp. 643–45; de Vorsey, Louis. “Pioneer Charting of the Gulf Stream: The Contributions of Benjamin Franklin and William Gerard De Brahm,” Imago Mundi Vol. 28 (1976), pp. 105–20. Offered in partnership with Boston Rare Maps of Southampton, Mass.
Item #10056
Price: $40,000.00
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