COLLECTION NAME:
JCB Archive of Early American Images
Accession number:
09277
Record number:
09277-030
JCB call number:
E799 L311vr1 Atlas / 2-SIZE
Image title:
Great sea urchins of the north west coast of America.
Creator 1:
Prévost
Creator 1 role:
delt.
Place image published:
London
Image publisher:
G. G. & J. Robinson
Image date:
1798
Image function:
plate 27; atlas
Technique:
engraving
Image dimension height:
42.4 cm. [platemark]
Image dimension width:
26 cm. [platemark]
Page dimension height:
43 cm.
Page dimension width:
27 cm.
Materials medium:
ink
Materials support:
paper
Languages:
English
Description:
Sea urchins or sand dollars of the northwest coast of America.
Source creator:
La Pérouse, Jean-François de Galaup, comte de, 1741-1788
Source Title:
[Voyage de La Pérouse autour du monde. English] A voyage round the world in the years 1785, 1786, 1787, and 1788
Source place of publication:
London
Source publisher:
Printed by A. Hamilton, for G.G. and J. Robinson, Paternoster-Row; J. Edwards, Pall-Mall; and T. Payne, Mews-gate, Castle-Street.
Source date:
1798-99
notes:
Sea urchins are of the scientific class Echinoidea of the echinoderm phylum. The French decided to mount a scientific and exploration voyage to rival that of Captain James Cook. Two ships, the Boussole and the Astrolabe, under La Perouse's command left France in August 1785. They spent the summer of 1786 off the coasts of Alaska looking for a northwest passage then sailed down the west coast of North America in August and September 1786. In September they crossed the Pacific Ocean to Asia. They first sailed north and then south to Australia which they reached in January 1788. In mid-March both ships were wrecked on a coral reef near the island of Vanikoro with all hands lost. Thirty years later remains were found, and islanders reported that survivors had built a boat and headed out to sea, but none were ever heard from again. La Perouse sent letters back to Europe from Manila, Macao, and Australia; this is how the voyage is known. In October 1787 he had also sent a Russian-speaking officer, Jean Baptiste Barthélemy, Baron de Lesseps (1766-1834) overland from Kamchatka with documents, charts, and journals. De Lesseps traveled through Siberia to St. Petersburg and then to Paris, arriving late in 1788. In May 1791, when it seemed clear that La Pérouse would not return, the revolutionary government commissioned former army officer Louis Antoine Milet-Mureau (1756-1825) to edit a book from these materials, which was published in Paris in four volumes with an atlas in 1797. A second French edition was required the following year, and English translations appeared in 1798, 1799, 1801, and 1807; German and Dutch editions were published between 1799 and 1804.
Time Period:
1751-1800
Provenance/Donor:
Acquired before 1870.
Owner and copyright:
©John Carter Brown Library, Box 1894, Brown University, Providence, R.I. 02912
geographic area:
North America
Subject Area:
Flora and fauna
Subject headings:
Natural history--North America