REPORT UPON THE COLORADO RIVER OF THE WEST, EXPLORED IN 1857 AND 1858

Book Description

Washington: Government Printing Office, 1861. First Edition. cloth. Very Good copy in original cloth. Large quarto (8-3/4" x 11-3/4") in original cloth, rebacked with the original spine and a new spine label; 131, 154, 30, 32 pages. Illustrated with 12 (of 14) views, 8 color plates, 8 folding panoramas, 3 paleontology plates, 2 large folding maps, 1 profile, and many wood engravings in this, the desirable Senate issue. Farquhar 21: "one of the most desirable books in the Colorado River field, for it is the first that deals specifically with the river itself"; Flake 4287; Goetzmann, pp.379-394; Larned 412; Howes I-92; New Howes I-94 "c"; Paher 952; Sabin 35308; Wagner-Camp 375; Wheat(947), (948); Wallace, The Great Reconnaissance, p.175: "This is the most reliable and entertaining narrative of all the official reports by topographical engineers on Western explorations." Ives, commissioned to determine the navigability of the Colorado, was the first white man to explore much of its course, and this is the first government publication on the exploration of the Colorado River. Eminently readable with fine illustrations. The 8 color plates of Native Americans are outstanding. Lacks the views of Canebrake Canon and Camp Colorado Plateau, which seem never to have been bound in, as well as the two additional maps in the Geological section, which seem more often than not not to have been included. A few of the plates have a dampstain in the corner which on occasion enters the image. Pencil signature of G. P. Sewall on the title page, likely the Cayuga, N.Y. Presbyterian minister in the 1870s.

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