Beschreibung:

(Franklin, Sir John) — John ArrowsmithDiscoveries in the Arctic Sea, between Baffin Bay & Melville Island; Shewing the Coasts Explored on the Ice … Also by the Hon. Hudson’s Bay Co. Expedition … in Search of Sir John Franklin London: Drawn from Official Documents, and Published by, John Arrowsmith, 21 October 1851
Large engraved map (703 x 467 mm), with handcoloring, mounted on linen and dissected to fold within original green cloth covers; minor soiling. Publishers green cloth slipcase with contemporary map-seller’s paper label on cover, “Arctic Discoveries”; some staining and discoloration to cloth.
First state of a cartographic landmark, announcing the discovery of the Northwest Passage. Bearing the publication date of 21 October 1851, the present and earliest iteration of Arrowsmith's map extends westward to the unfinished coast of Banks Land. A single example of the proof state of the map survives, and is held in the archives of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Finished examples of the first state are held at the British Library, the National Maritime Museum (Greenwich), the Newberry Library, and the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.
The present map documents the search for Sir John Franklin and his crew in 1850 and 1851, with the routes that Captain H. T. Austin, Captain W. Penny and Sir John Ross took, outlined in color. Franklin sailed from England in 1845, set to explore the last uncharted section of the Northwest Passage. Of course, he and his crew were never seen alive again. The search for Franklin and his expedition became a unsolved mystery of mythic proportion, addressed by his Victorian contemporaries in poems, novels, and even maps.
In 2014 and 2016, the wrecks of Franklin's two vessels, Terror and Erebus, were found by Canadian search teams.
Rare.