( g5S ) 
Art. VII . — Notice respecting the Archipelago of John Fotocki. 
By M. Julius Von Klaproth, Aulic Councillor to the 
Emperor of Russia 
HE Y ellow Sea was first visited by European navigators 
in the year 1793, when the Lion conducted Lord Macart- 
ney to China, but it did not approach the coasts of Corea, near 
the Tartaro-Chinese province of Liao-toung. 
In 1816, when the Alceste, under Captain Maxwell, and the 
Lyra, under Captain Basil Hall, conducted the late embassy 
to China, this part of the world was explored with great accu- 
racy, and innumerable islands were discovered on the western 
coast of Corea. These vessels, however, kept at a considerable 
distance from the south- coast of Liao-toung, which terminates 
the Yellow Sea on the north, and hence this coast is entirely 
unknown to European navigators. 
In the year 1 707, the Emperor of China, Kang-hee, employ- 
ed the two missionaries, Eather Gerbillas and Pereira, to make 
a survey of his extensive dominions, — a task which they accom- 
plished in the year 1715, and which contributed greatly to ex- 
tend our knowledge of those vast countries which form the eas- 
tern part of Upper Asia. These maps were engraved at Pekin, 
and several editions of them were published, both in the Chi- 
nese and the Mandchouc languages. Copies of these maps, with 
the Chinese and Tartar names transcribed in French, were im- 
mediately transmitted to Europe by the missionaries, and from 
these materials D’Anville composed the maps which accompany 
Duhalde'^s description of China, and which subsequently ap- 
peared in a separate form, under the title of Atlas de la Chine. 
Unfortunately, however, D’Anville knew neither the Chinese 
nor the Mandchouc languages, and hence the maps which he 
constructed were filled with innumerable errors, which still 
exist in the most recent maps of that country. 
‘‘ The original plates, says M. Klaproth, came by accident 
into my possession, and I presented them to the Russian Go- 
* Abridged end translated from the Annalc^ des Voyages, <^c., par MM. Eyri^ 
and Malte-Brun, tom iv. p. 383. 
VOL. III. NO. G. OCTOBER 1820. S 
