[MANUSCRIPT; ARCTIC] Extrait d’une Relation de Groenland addressée à M. de la Mothe le Vayer.

[Drop title]. [No date, but circa 1800]. Unbound manuscript in ink on laid paper, 225 x 165 mm, 3 1/4 pages; initialled ‘D’ at the foot; in very good condition, clean and legible.

This manuscript is an extract from a work entitled Une Relation du Groenland (1647), written by Isaac de La Peyrère (1596-1676) while he was secretary in the French embassy at Copenhagen. The work was completed at the request of François de la Mothe le Vayer (1588-1672), who was a French philosopher and the first to propose Greenland as the location of Atlantis.

Probably dating to the late eighteenth century, the manuscript includes La Peyrère’s summary of the climate and fauna of Greenland, Norway and Iceland, including descriptions of the harvest, the ‘white bears’ in these regions, the narwhal (the unicorn of the sea), and the sea surrounding Spitzbergen.