Price: £500.00
Title: Carte reduite d'une partie des cotes des isles Australes Publication: Voyages autour du Monde et vers les deux Poles par Terre et par Mer Born of noble family, a French naval officer, Pierre Marie François de Pages, made a five-year voyage around the world, between 1767 and 1771. Subsequently he took part in a two year voyage to the South Pole, between 1773 and 1774. Finally he made a trip to the North Pole in 1776. These voyages were recounted in his publication of 1782. In May 1773, Pages set sail with Yves de Kerguelen-Tremarec on the latter’s second voyage to ‘France Australe’ and sighted Kerguelen Island. In 1772 Kerguelen had discovered the island which was christened Terre de Desolation but was subsequently renamed by Captain James Cook as Kerguelen Island. “… Some of Monsieur de Kerguelen's own countrymen seem more desirous than we are to rob him of his honour. It is very remarkable, that Monsieur de Pages never once mentions the name of his commander; and, though he takes occasion to enumerate the several French explorers of the southern hemisphere, from Gonneville down to Crozet, he affects to preserve an entire silence about Kerguelen, whose first voyage, in which the discovery of this considerable tract of land was made, is kept as much out of sight as if it never had taken place. Nay, not satisfied with refusing to acknowledge the right of another, he almost assumes it to himself. For, upon a map of the world annexed to his book, at the spot where the new land is delineated, we read this inscription, Isles nouvelles Australes vuees par Monsieur de Pages, en 1774. He could scarcely have expressed himself in stronger terms, if he had meant to convey an idea that he was the conductor of the discovery. And yet we know that he was only a lieutenant on board of one of three ships commanded by Kerguelen; and that the discovery had been already made in a former voyage, undertaken while he was actually engaged in his singular journey round the world…”. Scarce. The bottom half of the left margin has been restored; Folds as given.
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