Beschreibung:

Charles Wilkes (1798-1877) Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition. During the years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842. Philadelphia: printed by C.Sherman, stereotyped by J.Fagan, published by Lea and Blanchard, 1845. 6 volumes (including atlas vol.), large 8° (280 x 180mm). 78 engraved plates and maps, numerous steel or wood-engraved illustrations. (Most plates spotted, maps browned, the folding maps with small tears, the majority repaired, vol.III with marginal staining). Original green/brown cloth, blocked in gilt and blind (vols.I-V recased, modern endpapers), the atlas vol. in a later cloth slip-case. Provenance : J.B.Bell (signature) A complete set of the third issue of this important work, Haskell's unofficial issue 2B (in a variant binding not recorded by Haskell), and limited to 1000 copies. 'In January and February, 1840, Charles Wilkes commander of America's first naval exploring expedition, sighted the Antarctic continent and then followed its coastline for a distance of more than fifteen hundred miles... he was the first definitely to announce the existence of an Antarctic continent' (H.M.Lydenberg in D.C.Haskell The United States Exploring Expedition New York, 1942, p.1). The expedition had been prompted by 'the ever increasing demand [in the early 19th century] on the part of American commercial interests for better and fuller information concerning those remote and poorly charted regions [of the South Pacific]' ( op.cit . p.1). After a lengthy period of debate federal funds were alloted to the U.S.Navy, Wilkes was appointed as commander and a number of able scientists and artists engaged to record the expedition. These included Horatio Hale (philologist), Charles Pickering and Horatio R.Peale (naturalists), J.P.Couthouy (conchologist), James D.Dana (mineralogist), William Rich (botanist), William D.Brackenridge (horticulturalist and assistant botanist) and Alfred T.Agate and Joseph Drayton (draughtsmen). Conrad p.54; Haskell 2B; Spence 1262; Taurus 6. (6)