[AMERICANA - PACIFIC RAILROAD SURVEY]. Reports of Explorations and Surveys, to Ascertain the Most Practicable and Economical Route for a Railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean... Washington, D.C.: Beverley Tucker, A.O.P. Nicholson, Thomas H. Ford, 1855-1860.

12 volumes in 13, large 4to. Numerous folding maps, lithographic plates, many colored, graphs and charts, etc. (Spotting or browning to several plates and titles.) Original cloth (crudely rebacked with library call numbers and modern labels), vol.8 rebound, edgewear with some later repairs). Provenance: W.H. Sumner (bookplate); The Chicago Field Museum (bookplates, deaccession stamps).

FIRST QUARTO EDITION, Senate Issue. “The Pacific Railroad Surveys are the most important and massive compilation of exploration reports and data about Trans–Mississippi West published in the era of exploration” (Reese) and is “the most important work on North American birds up to its date since Audubon and Wilson” (Ayer).

INCLUDES A FIRST EDITION OF THE WARREN MAP (dated “1854-5-6-7” and engraved by Selmar) in vol.9 which was “among the great maps of the United States that preceded the Civil War” (Wheat) and considered by Cohen to be a “masterpiece” that integrated for the first time the discoveries of the earliest explorers beginning with Lewis and Clark to the newly compiled data of the Pacific Railroad Surveys. Ayer/Zimmer 646; Cohen, Mapping the West, pp.172-175; Hill 1281; Howes P-3; Wagner-Camp 262-267; Reese, Best of the West 138; Reese, Stamped with a National Character 75; Wheat, Transmississippi West 822-824, 843-846, 852, 853, 864-867, 874, 875, 877-882, 898, 936.

Property from the Estate of Peter Fortsas