STEIN, Marc Aurel, Sir (1862-1943). Memoirs on Maps of Chinese Turkistan and Kansu. Dehra Dun, 1923. FIRST EDITION.
28 plates, 13 folding maps and one folding sectional chart in rear pocket. (One map with tape reinforcement and splits to folds.) Publisher's green cloth-backed printed tan boards (boards a little toned and worn at corners, spine label chipped). FIRST EDITION. Geographer Owen Lattimore described Stein as "the most prodigious combination of scholar, explorer and archaeologist" of his era. These maps are the results of his three Central Asian expeditions, on foot or horseback, over 40,000 kilometres from India's North West Frontier to Kansu, western China. Mason's appendix is a summary and discussion of Stein's triangulations, and Hunter's describes Stein's height observations. Stein's explorations in Chinese Turkestan provided the link which connected the Trignometrical Surveys of India with the Russian surveys of Central Asia. SCARCE: according to American Book Prices Current, only two copies have sold at auction in the last 40 years. Yakushi S334.
