Fine Printed Books & Manuscripts, Including Americana

3 volumes in 10 parts, 8vo. 29 plates (several in color, some folding), 9 maps (several folding), and one folding chart. (Light spotting, few marginal dampstains, title-page gathering detached in part 1, some plates loose at end of vol.3.) Original salmon printed wrappers (several spines chipped and reinforced with a matching slip of paper, some covers loose); glassines; folding case.

FIRST EDITION, not offered for public sale. In 1864, during the French invasion of Mexico, Napoleon III created the Commission Scientifique du Mexique, a major multidisciplinary expedition. Despite wartime conditions and its early end in 1867, the commission produced important work on Mexico’s geology, archaeology, and geography, with publications continuing for decades. The principal map of the expedition is: Carte des Régions Mexicaines explorées Pendant les Années 1864, 1865 et 1866. Voyage de E. Guillemin-Tarayre. Gravé chez Erhard, Imprimé à l’Imprimerie Impériale. Paris, 1867. The engraved map shows Mexico, the present-day U.S., and Central America, with Guillemin-Tarayre’s route and visited sites marked in red.

Other notable contributions include the 1865 ascent of Mt. Popocatépetl by Auguste de Dollfus; an exploration of Casas Grandes (140 miles southwest of El Paso), where a meteorite weighing 3,407 pounds was studied. Because two scientists first landed in California, the reports also cover mining in California and the American West. Volume II (fasc. 4) includes Guillemin-Tarayre’s notes on mines in Lower and Upper California; Volume III (fasc. 2) contains his “Notes Archéologiques et Ethnographiques” on Mexican linguistics and Native Americans in New California, New Mexico, and the Borderlands. Palau 15651; Sabin 48286.