Beschreibung:

Title: Report of Surveys Across the Continent, in 1867-'68, on the Thirty-Fifth and Thirty-Second Parallels, for a Route Extending the Kansas Pacific Railway to the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco and San Diego Author: Palmer, William Jackson Place: Philadelphia Publisher: W.B. Selheimer Date: 1869 Description: 6, [2], 7-250 pp. With folding profile and folding map. (8vo) 23x15 cm (9x6"), original printed wrappers. First Edition. Important and early railroad item, which also contains the first narrative of a white man to cross the Grand Canyon. James White was the sole survivor of his party, and his account first appears here. Goetzman in Exploration and Empire, pp. 394-397, discusses this story, but does not refer to the account in Palmer. Edwards, Enduring Desert, pp. 189-190, believes that Palmer's book contains the first printed account of California's High Desert, and it also is among the first books to mention Death Valley. Some copies of the Palmer's work contained three maps in addition to the profile, others just one - the present copy just has the one (no signs of removal of the others). The large map, the first to use the name "Grand Canyon of the Colorado," is: "Map of the route of the Southern Continental R.R. with connections from Kansas City Mo., Ft. Smith Ark. and Shreveport La., giving a general view of the recent surveys of the Kansas Pacific Railway Co., across the continent made in 1867 & 1868..." (76x96 cm), of the western United States with northern Mexico, the proposed or actual railroad routes hand-colored. It is the first issue (of two) of the map. The profile is: "General profile of the Union Pacific Railway, E.D. or Kansas Pacific Rail Road from St. Louis to San Francisco" (15x152 cm). Provenance: Randall House, 6/91 References: Howes P-54 Wheat Transmississippi 1206, and Vol. V, pp. 253-255; Graff 3177; Farquhar, Colorado River & The Grand Canyon, 24. The title of my map corresponds to that of Graff and not of Wheat; the latter has an additional two lines regarding Keeler's Map as a source. My copy is first issue. Lot Amendments Condition: A little wear and a few short tears to wrappers; very good or better, uncommon thus in the original wrappers. Item number: 265194