[Rarebooks] fa: BOTANY of the PACIFIC RAILROAD EXPEDITION (Cacti, etc.) 1856 - w/ 60 Plates

[ArCh]

Auction ends Sunday, March 26. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

https://tinyurl.com/5n75n6u7

Many thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


[J. M. Bigelow; John Torrey; et al:] Reports of Explorations and Surveys, to Ascertain the Most Practicable and Economical Route for a Railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean... Volume IV: (Report on the Botany of the Expedition). Washington: A. O. P. Nicholson, printer, 1856. Large 4to (30 cm) in modern calf-backed marbled boards, spine lettered and decorated in gilt, new endpapers; [4], vii, [1], 193, [1], 17, [3], 288 pp. Complete with 59 black&white lithograph plates and a large (48 x 23 in.) folding colored "Botanical Profile of Forest Trees along the route...from Fort Smith to San Pedro."

One of twelve such volumes of Pacific Railroad surveys commissioned by Secretary of War Jefferson Davis and published from 1855-1861. This volume, complete in itself, focuses primarily on the botany encountered during the expedition led by Lieut. A. W. Whipple of the Corps of Topographical Engineers "upon the route near the thirty-fifth parallel," i.e., from the Mississippi River, via the Rio Grande, the Colorado, and the Mojave Desert, to Los Angeles. The contents include: No. 1. General Description of the Botanical Character of the Country -- No. 2. Description of Forest Trees -- No. 3. Description of the Cactaceae [Cactuses] -- No. 4. Description of the General Botanical Collections -- no. 5. Description of the Mosses and Liverworts. Section no. 4 is by the eminent American botanist John Torrey. The last part of the volume consists of a brief section on zoology (part of a much longer report, the bulk of which "will appear in a later volume") and an extensive appendix that includes astronomical, magnetic, climatological and barometric observations, etc.

Intermittent browning and foxing to the text and plates, occasionally rather pronounced, repaired tear to the folding profile, otherwise clean and sound and firmly bound in a fresh and attractive modern binding.