Beschreibung:

MOXON, JOSEPH.] Ein kurzer Discours von der Schiff-Fahrt bey dem Nord-Pol Nach Japan, China und so weiter... Sampt einer Land-Charte so alle Länder nechst dem Polo anweiset. Aus dem Englischen ins Hochdeutsche übersetzt. Hamburg: Johan Naumanns and Georg Wolffs, 1676. 4to, 184 x 136 mm. (7¼ x 5 3/8 in.), modern cloth boards, original front flyleaf preserved, light foxing, map fraying at edges, one small tear entering platemark. Only German edition. Collation: )( 4 . 4 unnumbered leaves. Engraved map of the known lands surrounding the North Pole, folded at borders, engraved by Jochim Wichman, half-page woodcut map of Nova Zembla and the Kara Sea on last page. Cordier, Bibliotheca Japonica , 397; Sabin 38357. Rare German translation of Moxon's Brief discourse, published in London in 1674, in which he put forth the theory that the best route to Japan and China lay across the North Pole, citing evidence overheard from a Dutch sailor in an Amsterdam tavern that the seas around the Pole remain free of ice. This German edition is the second edition overall, as a second English edition did not appear until 1697. The German translation is more commonly found as part of the 1678 issue of Capel, Norden (cf. JCB (3) III, p. 282). The map, which shows about three-quarters of the northern hemisphere, including Japan, is apparently a direct copy of the map that appeared in Moxon's original pamphlet.