This is Pierre Mortier's unique world map drawn on Mercator's projection. It depicts California as an island and the Detroit d'Anian connected by dotted lines through the Northwest Passage to Button's Bay located to the west of Hudson Bay. There is an erroneous large lake shown as the source for the R. de Nort (Rio Grande River) located in the Southwest, as well as an early, open-ended version of the Great Lakes named Mer Douce. A small fragment of coastline represents New Zealand in the Pacific. The northeast coast of Asia is severely truncated and shows Witsen's Cap de Glaces. Australia's northern coast is shown connected to New Guinea, and two disjointed coastlines appear to the south, including Van Diemen's Land. The most interesting features of the map are the five spheres presented along the top depicting day and night, the flood, the phases of the moon, and the Western and Eastern Hemispheres. The map was precisely engraved by Jan van Luchenburg (imprint at lower left). This is the first state with Mortier's imprint at bottom right, published in Historie des Ouden en Nieuwen Testament and its French edition Histoire du Nouveau Testament.

References: Shirley #622.

Condition: A

A crisp impression on a sturdy sheet with a "LLAR" watermark. There is a small paper flaw in the image at bottom left, marginal toning, and a short archivally repaired edge tear in the bottom blank margin.