Carte de la Dominique Prise par les Francois Le 7 Septembre 1778
Carte de la Dominique Prise par les Francois Le 7 Septembre 1778
BUACHE, Philippe

Carte de la Dominique Prise par les Francois Le 7 Septembre 1778

Paris
1778
Size : 49 x 64 cm
Color : Coloris original
Condition : Très bon
Reference : 530-4
€850.00

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Description

Detailed map of Dominica by Buache.

The map includes a detailed plan of the landing and attack of the English forts by French troops. This map comes from Thomas Jefferys' Atlas of the West Indies. The French frigates firing on the English fortifications have been added. A second inset just above details the central position of Dominica in relation to the other French islands of the West Indies. The purpose of this military maneuver was to protect the trade between the French islands "Dominica is one of the best and most important islands of the West Indies [...] situated in the middle of the French islands, it could easily interrupt their trade having a fleet in the Grand Alliance".

The map is based on the one made by John Byres entitled Plan of the island of Dominica and published two years earlier.

BUACHE, Philippe

Philippe Buache (1700-1773) was a student of Guillaume Delisle and a renowned French geographer. After Delisle's death in 1726, he went into partnership with his widow and married his daughter in 1729. In the same year he was appointed Premier Géographe du Roi and the following year he was elected member of the Académie des Sciences. Philippe Buache forms a complete contrast with his predecessor. He was one of the main protagonists of theoretical geography and, in collaboration with Joseph Nicolas De l'Isle, produced some of the most fantastic and inaccurate maps of Western America ever printed. Nevertheless, Buache made some contribution to the progress of cartography. He was one of the pioneers of physical geography dividing both land and water into mountain ranges and basins. He was the first to suggest that America and Asia had once been joined at the Bering Strait, and one of the first to take advantage of the contour or isobath technique in his 1737 map of the English Channel. 

Tooley - The mapping of America 43; Martin & Martin, Maps of Texas, pl. 19, pp. 98-9; Schwartz/ Ehrenberg, pp. 140; Kohl,Lowery Collection, p. 230; Cumming, Southeast, no. 170