Catalog Archive
Auction 133, Lot 297

"General Map Showing the Countries Explored & Surveyed by the United States & Mexican Boundary Commission in the Years 1850, 51, 52 & 53", Bartlett, John Russell

Subject: Western United States & Mexico

Period: 1855 (circa)

Publication: Personal Narrative of Explorations…

Color: Black & White

Size:
19.4 x 15.2 inches
49.3 x 38.6 cm
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This map covers the entire western United States and northern Mexico with particular emphasis on the land recently obtained from Mexico. It is filled with place names, numerous Indian villages, geographical notes, and exploration routes. Wheat notes this is, all in all, an excellent map of the West that has a very early depiction of the Gadsden Purchase. It is one of the first commercial maps to show Jackson Lake east of the three Tetons. Sublettes Lake is noted as the source of the Yellowstone River. The geography of the unnamed Great Basin follows closely the cartography of Fremont's maps of 1845 and 1848. Utah is in its largest configuration stretching from California beyond the Continental Divide to Kansas. A note in the Staked Plains declares that "the whole country from the head waters of the Red, Brazos & Colorado Rivers to the Rio Pecos is a sterile and barren plain without water or timber producing only a few stinted shrubs which are insufficient to sustain animal life." Published by J.H. Colton & Co.

References: Wheat (TMW) #798; Wagner-Camp #234:1.

Condition: B+

Issued folded, now flattened with a 1.5" binding tear at right neatly repaired with archival tape.

Estimate: $375 - $475

Sold for: $275

Closed on 9/1/2010

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