This comprehensive report is based upon Stansbury's famous explorations in Utah. It documents Stansbury's trek from Fort Leavenworth to the Great Salt Lake and his circumnavigation around the entire Great Salt Lake. Stansbury's accounts included the study of the Indian tribes, the Mormons, and an extensive appendix on Geology, Botany and Zoology. The report includes 57 (of 59) plates of views (with several folding views), reptiles, insects, and plants.

Accompanying the report is one (of two) very large folding maps, Map of a Reconnoissance Between Fort Leavenworth on the Missouri River…, that covers the Great Plains, Colorado, Wyoming and Utah in considerable detail on a scale of 1" to about 16 miles. The detail is particularly evident in present-day Colorado, the Laramie Mountains (here labeled Black Hills), and in the vicinity of Salt Lake. Wheat devotes more than eight pages of text to this map, calling it "one of the most important [maps] of its decade, bringing permanently into Western cartography a number of outstanding details." Issued on two sheets and joined together, likely from two different examples.

Octavo. 495 pages. Hardbound in contemporary cloth with gilt title and illustration on spine.

See also lot 784 for Carl Wheat's Mapping the Transmississippi West that describes this map.

References: Wagner-Camp #219:2; Wheat (TMW) #764; Howes #S-884.

Condition: B

The map was issued folding and is now flattened and backed with tissue to reinforce and repair numerous fold separations throughout. There is some minor loss at a few fold junctions and the map is lifting off the tissue in a few places. Light toning along the folds is more predominant on the right sheet, which appears to be taken from a different example. Plates range from good to near fine with scattered foxing. Text is also foxed and somewhat loose with one plate detached. Covers have light wear and bumped corners. Spine is sunned. Ex-library.