Chart of the coast of America and the N E coast of Asia, 1779
By Cartographers, 1779
This 1779 chart traces the icy boundary where North America and Asia nearly touch, brought together across the top of the world by the waters of the Bering Strait. It records what Captain James Cook and his crew learned on his third and final voyage, a journey driven by the search for the Northwest Passage, that long-dreamed sea route linking the Atlantic and Pacific. Bold lettering names the "Frozen" and "Arctic Sea or Hyperborean Ocean" along the upper edge, while the sprawling "Pacific Ocean or Great South Sea" anchors the bottom.
Soft pink and yellow lines mark out the coastlines, some drawn with confidence and others fading into wide open blank spaces that show just how mysterious these lands still were to Europeans. The gaps tell as much of a story as the details, revealing the limits of what anyone knew about the far north. For its day, this was the very latest in geographic knowledge, and Cook's readings held up well given the freezing conditions his ships pushed through.
A quiet twist hangs over the whole thing. Cook never laid eyes on this completed map, since he was killed in Hawaii in February 1779, the same year printed across its title.