Catalog Archive
Auction 164, Lot 193

Long's Important Map of the American West

"Map of the Country Drained by the Mississippi", Long, Stephen H. (Col.)

Subject: Central United States

Period: 1823 (dated)

Publication: Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains...

Color: Black & White

Size:
20.2 x 14.8 inches
51.3 x 37.6 cm
Download High Resolution Image
(or just click on image to launch the Zoom viewer)

This is the London edition of Long's important map of the American West (after Lewis & Clark and Pike). For this edition, the previously published two sheet map consisting of eastern and western sections were combined into a single map with only slightly less coverage. Long's map is the first map to portray the South Platte River drainage with any degree of accuracy. "Highest Peak" previously designated by Pike is now named James Peak with "Highest Peak" moved northward (now known as Longs Peak). "Great Desert" appears in large letters to the east of the Rockies, a myth that would impede western migration for decades to follow. In addition to topographic features, the map identifies Indian lands, locates numerous Indian villages, marks the routes taken by various detachments of the expedition (including encampment locations and dates), shows prominent geological boundaries, and notes important events. One such notation states "About eight miles above the Konzas Village near Blueearth River, Dr. Say's party was met by a Pawnee war party, robbed of their horses and baggage and compelled to return." Includes the inset "Country of the Mississippi" showing the State of Louisiana, and "Profile or Vertical Section of the Country" spanning the length of the map at bottom. Engraved by Sidney Hall and published in Edwin James' Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, performed in the Years 1819, 1820.

References: cf. Wheat (TMW ) #353; cf. Marcou & Marcou #23.

Condition: B+

Issued folding and now flattened and professionally backed with tissue to reattached a thin, 4.5" section of mostly blank margin at lower right that had been torn to just inside the neatline. There is very faint scattered foxing mostly at bottom.

Estimate: $1,500 - $1,800

Sold for: $1,100

Closed on 9/13/2017

Archived