[Rarebooks] F/S Schoolcraft, Henry R. View of the Lead Mines of Missouri;

[Garry R Austin]

We offer the following net to all and postpaid in the US @$99.00 Please read entire listing!

Schoolcraft, Henry R. View of the Lead Mines of Missouri; Including Some Observations on the Mineralogy, Geology, Geography, Antiquities, Soil, Climate, Population, and Productions of Missouri and Arkansaw, and Other Sections of the Western Country. New York. Charles Wiley, 1819.
Octavo; pp; 299, index; Illustrated, frontispiece shows the mining town of Potosi, plus two engraved plates;  published in original boards, with a printed paper spine label. The following bibliographic references describe this book; Wagner-Camp 15d:1. Howes S194. Graff 3702. Sabin 77881. Clark II:66. 

The first published work of Schoolcraft, notable for his many later works relating to American Indians. His initial training was in geology, and in 1817-18 he undertook an expedition to southern Missouri and northern Arkansas to examine the lead mines there, which had been described in print by Moses Austin twenty years earlier. His book is the first detailed description by a trained scientist of the Ozark uplands. At the time of his visit, the area was still effectively beyond the frontier, and he provides a good picture of life there.

PLEASE NOTE; This is a first edition being offered “waf” “with all faults”; It is disbound, the text block lacks the last 3 pages of the index, the text of the narrative is complete. It lacks the frontispiece view and one of the two additional plates; The plate #1 of the “Log Hearth Furnace” is present. There is significant staining to the rear 33% of the book, yet the text is readable thru that staining. It is a significant relic of Southern Americana, Schoolcraft’s first book and the first authoratative description of the Ozarks.