Report upon the Colorado River of the West
Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1861. First Edition, Senate Issue. 131,154,30,6,31pp. Quarto [29 cm] Original black cloth with the title gilt stamped on the backstrip and the steamboat, 'Explorer' gilt stamped on the front board. Very good. Boards gently rubbed, more so at corners and hinges. Complete with all 26 tipped-in plates (all eight Indian portraits have been nicely tinted) Both large folding maps are present at the front, both have short closed tears where they are bound in. All eight fold-out panoramas are present. Lacks the two, rarely seen geologic maps.
On the front pastedown the book is inscribed: "Presented to Thetford Academy by the Hon. Jacob Collamer Received Apr. 2 1862." Collamer was a longtime politician from Vermont, and at the time of this publication was the senior Senator from Vermont. Item #10753
This report is the first to deal with the Colorado River specifically. One of the most important and best illustrated United States Government surveys of the American west. This work describes in detail Lieut. Ives and his crew taking a steamboat up the Colorado River, the ship made it as far as Black Canyon (the site of the Hoover Dam). The group then went on foot making it to the lower Grand Canyon. The illustrations by Mollhausen are excellent and the fold-out panoramas by Frederick W. von Egloffstein are some of the earliest maps of the Canyon. Eberstadt 120: 120. Fales & Flake 105. Farquhar 21. Flake/Draper 4287. Howes I-92. Paher 952. Reese, Best of the West 163. Wagner/Camp 375. Wheat 947, 948.
Price: $800.00