Carte D'un Nouveau Monde, entre le Nouveau Mexique, et la Mer Glacialle Novellement decouvert par le R.P. Louis Hennepin...

Extremely rare second edition of Louis de Hennepin’s map of North America, which incorporates many of the discoveries omitted by Hennepin in the first edition of his map (1683). Includes reports of Robert La Salle’s journey from the Niagara Falls region through the Illinois Company and the Upper Mississippi.
The map was engraved by Gaspar Bouttats and dedicated to King William III of England.

This rare second edition shows the continuation of La Salle’s explorations farther south to the Lower Mississippi River, with both the Ohio and Missouri rivers included. Other important additions are the Hudson Bay and an inset map of Terre De Iesso, with a land bridge to California.

In 1672, La Salle met the Governor of Canada, who sent him to France to negotiate a monopoly of the fur trade. La Salle returned on the same ship as Father Louis Hennepin, a Friar headed for New France. He hired Hennepin to serve as Chaplain at Fort Frontenac, from where La Salle and Hennepin hoped to open up the west. This resulted in the exploration of an enormous amount of territory, and the naming of lakes and other features, most names surviving to modern times.
Following their expedition, Hennepin returned to France where he published his first book in January 1683, with later editions in 1684 and 1688. This edition of Hennepin’s map is extremely rare.

- First state of the first map to name Louisiana although it was La Salle who thought of it. The map was published in Hennepin’s Description de la Louisiane, the first published account of La Salle’s journey through the Illinois Country and the upper Mississippi River. Hennepin was a Recollet missionary who had accompanied La Salle to the Illinois Country in 1678-1679.
The map illustrates the territory through which La Salle had traveled. It shows the Great Lakes and the course of the Mississippi as far south as the Arkansas which was were Jolliet and Marquette reached. Beyond that point, Hennepin shows the course of the river relatively accurately by a dotted line indicating Jolliet and Marquette's belief that the river flowed directly into the gulf of Mexico. The map "opened a new period in the history of the Great Lakes."

Reference: Burden, The Mapping of North America, II, 556.