Marcy, Randolph B.; McClellan, George B.

Exploration of the Red River of Louisiana in the Year 1852 [Inscribed by William Henry Seward]

Washington: Beverley Tucker, 1854.

Hardcover. Very good. 33d Congress, 1st Session. Senate. Executive Doc. Second edition (first printed 1853 by Armstrong). xv, 310 pp, with 64 lithograph plates following the text, including two duplicates (As usual, there is no plate II in the geology section and no plate XVIII in the botany section. Additionally, this copy lacks plate III in the geology section and instead duplicates plate IV. Plate XVI in the Zoology section also appears twice). No atlas volume. Original brown cloth, gilt spine. Corners bumped, minor chipping to head of spine, some plates with mild to moderate foxing. This copy is twice inscribed (on the front pastedown and on the title page) by then-Senator and later Secretary of State William Henry Seward to W.A. Wallace (likely William Andrew Wallace, then a state senator from Pennsylvania, later a U.S. Senator). "Marcy's party crossed a thousand miles of previously undocumented Texas and Oklahoma territory, discovering numerous valuable mineral deposits as well as twenty-five new species of mammals and ten of reptiles...He reportedly discovered the sources of both forks of the Red River, as well as the Palo Duro and Tule canyons. The expedition encountered and documented the little-known Wichita Indians and compiled the first Wichita dictionary" (Texas Historical Association). Sabin 44512, Howes M-276, Graff 2675.

Item #14099

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