2 volumes, large 8vo (273 x 154 mm). Approximately 219 manuscript pages, comprising detailed field notes, drawings, scientific measurements, descriptions of topographical features, and related observations. (Ink stains to preliminary leaves of one volume.) Contemporary sheep (spines mostly perished, covers rubbed and flaking, occasional ink stains, some very minor dampstaining to endpapers of one volume). Provenance: Theodore B. Comstock (1849-1915), American natural scientist and first president of the University of Arizona; Cecil Mosier (1910-1995), Yukon Territory sheriff and private investigator; by descent through the latter's family.

AN INVALUABLE SCIENTIFIC RECORD BY ONE OF THE FIRST NATURAL SCIENTISTS TO EXPLORE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK.

In 1873, Theodore Comstock was selected to accompany Captain William Albert Jones on a reconnaissance of western Wyoming, one of the earliest government expeditions into the Yellowstone region following its designation as the world's first national park in 1872. Its principal objective was to determine a wagon route between the Union Pacific Railroad and Yellowstone; the expedition is credited with the discovery of Togwotee Pass, and its findings were subsequently presented to Congress as House Executive Document 285.

The present journals form Comstock's firsthand scientific record of the expedition, documenting his treks through the Yellowstone wilderness, geological and topographical observations, encounters with Native Americans, and the collection and preparation of scientific specimens, an inventory of which appears at the end of the first volume. His fieldwork could be physically hazardous. During one geological excursion he records: "In coming up out of the canyon, I chose a steep place for its geological interest, and was taken with a fit of nervous prostration while in a difficult place, so that I was obliged to be pulled up by Crary..."

Alongside his scientific observations, Comstock recorded the people and material culture he encountered during the expedition. Of one Native American he observed: "An Indian...with sore eyes, I saw carrying a 'medicine' stick, which consisted of a slender black rod about three feet in length, with a small rosette of cut feathers at the ends, and a large whole feather hanging from one end."

Comstock published much of his work from the expedition the following year in Reports on the Geology of Northwestern Wyoming. He later became a professor of geology at Cornell University in 1875, a professor of mining engineering and physics at the University of Illinois and, in 1894, the first president of the University of Arizona. The University of Arizona and McGill University hold collections of his papers and scientific notes.