?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 10,000 - $ 15,000
THE FOLGER-FRANKLIN GULF STREAM MAP. ROUGE, GEORGE LOUIS le. Remarques Sur la Navigation de Terre-Neuve a New Yorkafin d'eviter les Courrants et les bas-fonds au Sud de Nantucket et du Banc de George. Double-page engraved map of the eastern Atlantic and the Gulf Stream. 325x490 mm, margins trimmed within platemark at top and bottom but wide at sides. A beautiful example. Paris: Le Rouge, [circa 1780-83]
Benjamin Franklin's study of the Gulf Stream began in 1768, during his tenure as postmaster of the Britsh Colonies in North America. Franklin's observations of the differing east-west Transatlantic travel times led him to discuss the currents with his cousin Timothy Folger, a Nantucket sea captain. Franklin sent the information he had gathered about the Gulf Stream to London, where it was added to an obsolete chart published by Mount & Page. This map was issued in a small run and went largely unused by sea captains. Franklin was not deterred and continued his research, namely on Transatlantic crossings in 1775 and '76. On his arrival in Paris, Franklin had Le Rouge issue a reduced version of the chart for inclusion in Pilote Neptune Septentrionale. Franklin also intended the map for use by French sea captains who were carrying materiel to the colonies. Cohn, "Benjamin Franklin, George Louis Le Rouge and the Franklin-Folger Chart of the Gulf Stream," Image Mundi, Volume 52; De Vorsey, Louis, "Pioneering Charting of the Gulf Stream," Imago Mundi, Volume 28; Pritchard & Taliaferro, Degrees of Latitude, 62, pages 270-273.
