Nouvelle Galles Méridle. ou Côte Orientale de la Nouvelle Hollande. c1788

by Cook, Captain James

Antique map. Cook's navigational charts of East Coast of New Holland (Australia). A fine group of important early chartings of the Australian coastlines during Cook's 1st Voyage.

In 1788 Monsieur Rigobert Bonne (1727-1794), Hydrographic Engineer of the French Navy, published in Paris the meticulous charts with depth soundings that James Cook recorded during  his navigation of the east coast of Australia in 1770, after his discovery of land at Botany Bay, claiming it for England and naming it New South Wales - the east coast of the land named New Holland when the Dutch charted the west coast in the 17th century.

The 3 small adjacent charts are of The Labrynth ("Part of the Coast of New South Wales") - the region where Cook laid up his ship Endeavour in the Endeavour River (which Cook named) after running aground on "covered rocks" of the Great Barrier Reef; Botany Bay - the site where Cook first landed on the east coast of Australia; and the Entry to the Endeavour River. The small map at lower left Esquisse de la Terre Van-Diemen. Par le Captne Furneaux is Captain Furneaux's sketch of the Land of Van-Diemen (Tasmania).

On thick hand-laid paper, this map to intaglio impression is 365 x 250mm (14 3/8 x 9 3/4 inches). Page size is 420 x 285mm (16 1/2 x 11 1/4 inches), with central horizontal fold to accommodate size of publication - plus one extra 'careless' horizontal fold below it. There are tiny worm holes in the margin, (I'm sure this rich paper would have been very palatable.) and one tiny extremity repair, neatly repaired with archival tape.