[Americana] [Pacific Railroad Survey] Reports of Explorations and Surveys, to Ascertain the Most Practicable and Economical Route for a Railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean...

Washington: Beverley Tucker, A.O.P. Nicholson, Thomas H. Ford, 1855-1860. 12 volumes bound in 13. First quarto edition, mixed issue (Vols. II, IX, X, and XI are from the House of Representatives issue; all other volumes are from the Senate issue). 4to. With numerous illustrations, folding maps, lithographic plates, colored lithographic plates (including hand-colored lithographs of birds), graphs and charts, etc. Modern half morocco, stamped in gilt; scattered foxing and marginal dampstaining; tissue repairs to folds of several maps; some marginal browning. Ayer/Zimmer 646; Cohen, Mapping the West, pp. 172-175; Hill 1281; Howes P-3; Wagner-Camp 262-267; Reese, Best of the West 138; Reese, Stamped with a National Character 75; Wheat, Transmississippi 822-824, 843-846, 852, 853, 864-867, 874, 875, 877-882, 898, 936

First quarto edition. The numerous lithographs depict bird’s-eye views of the region, native peoples of the areas explored, folding maps detailing newly discovered areas, etc. Contains the reports of Humphreys, Stevens, Beckwith, Whipple, Warren, Williamson, Lander, et al. “The Pacific Railroad Surveys are the most important and massive compilation of exploration reports and data about Trans-Mississippi West published in the era of exploration” (Reese) and is “the most important work on North American birds up to its date since Audubon and Wilson” (Ayer).

Includes a first edition of the Warren Map (dated “1854-5-6-7” and engraved by Selmar) in Volume XI, which was “among the great maps of the United States that preceded the Civil War” (Wheat) and considered by Cohen to be a “masterpiece” that integrated for the first time the discoveries of the earliest explorers beginning with Lewis and Clark to the newly compiled data of the Pacific Railroad Surveys.

[Americana] [Pacific Railroad Survey] Reports of Explorations and Surveys, to Ascertain the Most Practicable and Economical Route for a Railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean...