Name: Bory's Map of Atlantis
Author: Jean-Baptiste Bory de Saint Vincent

Bory was an advocate of the ‘debris theory’ of 

: the notion that ‘the islands in the Atlantic are the debris that now remains following 

’ inundation’. (King, 2006)  

There were many variations of this theory, but Bory’s specific suggestion was that the Canary Islands, together with Madeira and the Azores, were the remnants of 

. In this he was developing an earlier speculation associated with Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (1656–1708), the pioneering French botanist and professor at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, who had proposed that ‘

 was destroyed by seawater gushing out of the Mediterranean’. (King, 2006)

Bory’s conjectural reconstruction of the Atlantean continent appears in his Essais sur les Isles Fortunées et l’antique Atlantide (1803). Instead of the open Atlantic facing what is now Western Sahara, the map shows a vast landmass mirroring the west coast of Africa and nearly meeting it in a narrow strait near modern-day Cabo Bojador. Bory attempts to demonstrate that the Atlantic archipelagos were originally the elevated regions of 

, now surviving as island-fragments of the lost continent. 

The book also includes a discussion of the Canary Islands’ Indigenous inhabitants, the Guanches. Now understood to have had strong affinities with North African Berber populations, the Guanches were progressively destroyed or assimilated following the Spanish conquest of the Canaries in the fifteenth century, through a combination of violence, enslavement, disease and cultural absorption. They remain an enigma, with the mystery of their culture and tragic fate only deepened by the fantastic notion that they were vestiges of the fabled Atlantean civilisation. (Teixeira and Cardoso, 2020)

Ex Carta

Bory’s conjectural reconstruction of the Atlantis appears in his 

Essais sur les Isles Fortunées et l’antique Atlantide

 (1803). Instead of the open Atlantic facing what is now Western Sahara, the map shows a vast landmass mirroring the west coast of Africa and nearly meeting it in a narrow strait near modern-day Cabo Bojador. Bory attempts to demonstrate that the Atlantic archipelagos were originally the elevated regions of Atlantis, now surviving as island-fragments of the lost continent.

The French naturalist, geographer and soldier Jean-Baptiste-Geneviève-Marcellin Bory de Saint-Vincent (1778–1846), usually abbreviated to Bory, led a life that combined scientific exploration, intellectual contributions to fields including botany, entomology and volcanology, and service in the Napoleonic army.

He was made a Knight of the Legion of Honour in 1811, but his life became difficult after Napoleon’s defeat and the Bourbon Restoration. He nevertheless later took part in prestigious scientific expeditions to Greece and Algeria, although his career was periodically complicated by political turmoil and exile.

Bory was also among the early nineteenth-century naturalists who considered the mutability of species. The 

Dictionnaire Classique d’Histoire Naturelle

 (1822–31), of which he was principal editor, formed part of the library carried on HMS Beagle during Darwin’s famous voyage.

Jean-Baptiste Bory de Saint Vincent's famous 'Conjectural Map of Atlantis'

Title page for Bory's 'Les Isles Fortunées et l'Antique Atlantide' (1803)

Map of the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean

Engravings showing the profile of the Punta de Anaga and Punta de Teno on the island of Tenerife.

Map of the island of Tenerife

Engraving of Chahorra (Pico Viejo), a volcano located on the island of Tenerife in Canary Islands.

Botanical study from the Mercedes Forest in Tenerife. 

Bory's work also includes a discussion of the Canary Islands’ Indigenous inhabitants, the Guanches. Now understood to have had strong affinities with North African Berber populations, the Guanches were progressively destroyed or assimilated following the Spanish conquest of the Canaries in the fifteenth century, through a combination of violence, enslavement, disease and cultural absorption. They remain an enigma, with the mystery of their culture and tragic fate only deepened by the fantastic notion that they were vestiges of the fabled Atlantean civilisation. (Teixiera and Cardoso, 2020)