Catalog Archive
Auction 167, Lot 127

"Reconnoissance of the Western Coast of the United States from Monterey to the Columbia River in Three Sheets Sheet No. 3", U.S. Coast Survey

Subject: Northwestern United States

Period: 1851 (dated)

Publication:

Color: Hand Color

Size:
17.4 x 19.4 inches
44.2 x 49.3 cm
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The Office of Coast Survey is the oldest U.S. scientific organization, dating from 1807 when Congress directed that a "survey of the coast" be carried out. By 1836, it was called the U.S. Coast Survey and in 1878, the name was changed to the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. Today the Office of Coast Survey is a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NOAA.

The survey teams, composed of civilians as well as Army and Naval officers, charted the nation's waterways and produced a wide array of reports, survey charts, hydrographic studies of tides and currents, astronomical studies and observations, and coastal pilots. These charts are an important record of the changing nature of the nation's coastlines. In additional to coastal charts, the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey produced land sketches, Civil War battle maps, and the early aeronautical charts.

This is the third and northernmost sheet in a three-sheet set of minimal and precise U.S. Coast Survey charts covering the western coast of the United States. It spans from Cape Arago in Oregon north to the Columbia Bar and Cape Disappointment near the Oregon-Washington border. In addition to soundings, bottom types, and anchorages, it includes mouths of rivers and some topographical detail. Sailing directions and a key identifying the bottom types appear at bottom right. Third edition. Drawn by W.B. McMurtrie and engraved by A. Rolle, F. Dankworth, O.A. Lawson, G. McCoy, and W. Smith.

References:

Condition: A

There is an edge tear at top right and a fold separation at right both confined to the blank margin that have been closed on verso with archival materials.

Estimate: $170 - $200

Sold for: $90

Closed on 3/28/2018

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