REDWOOD AND LUMBERING IN CALIFORNIA FORESTS

Book Description

San Francisco: Edgar Cherry & Co., 1884.. [2],107pp. plus twenty-four albumen print photographs, each on an individual thin card mount within a purple printed border, twenty-one with purple printed titles, the other three with no printed title. One photograph with an additional pencil note identifying one of the loggers as "Billy Russel." Quarto. Original blue cloth, title stamped in gilt on front board, neatly rebacked with original spine laid down. Neat repairs to corners and edges of binding. Very clean internally, the images very clean and crisp, and the text quite clean as well. Overall, a very good copy. In a cloth clamshell case, leather label. An important early Californian photographically illustrated work, and an "impressive verbal and pictorial description of the logging industry on the northern coast of California" (Kurutz). The photographs are amazing and must have shocked eastern audiences by showing men standing before redwood trunks thicker than the man is tall. Other photographs show logging trains, felled timbers, groves of redwoods, and logging methods utilizing the steam- powered "donkey engines." In the preface Cherry complains that the "almost constant fog that hangs over the Redwood belt makes it difficult also to obtain good views of the forests and logging camps," but that he wanted to illustrate the book with photographs rather than engravings "to set aside all doubt as to the enormous growth of the Redwood, the number of feet per acre, and the superior qualifications that will recommend it to builders and others. In as much as engravings are usually cut from sketches, drawn perhaps by enthused artists, perfect satisfaction is not given; but with photographic views, which cannot lie, argument as to truthfulness is unnecessary." The pictures in the book vary from copy to copy, and it appears that no two copies are identical in the pictures included or the order in which they are presented. The photo captions were applied manually with an ink stamp, but some of the captions in this copy are blank (as is often the case). The volume was prepared to promote the use of redwood, the superior qualities of which are emphasized. The brief history of redwood lumbering is recounted, and the processes by which the trees are felled and cut are related in great detail. There is also an article by Kellogg on the relationship of the redwoods to other cedar trees. COWAN, p.525. KURUTZ, CALIFORNIA BOOKS ILLUSTRATED WITH ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS 7; p.16. GOLDSCHMIDT & NAEF, THE TRUTHFUL LENS 135. HOWELL 50:361. FRITZ, CALIFORNIA COAST REDWOOD 1209. MILES & REESE, CREATING AMERICA 74.

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