Ives, Joseph C.

Report Upon the Colorado River of the West, Explored in 1857 and 1858 [James Wickersham's Copy]

Washington: Government Printing Office, 1861.

First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. House issue. Quarto, pp 181; 154; 30; 31, [1]; with two large folding topographical maps, one profile, eight color plates (Indian portraits and the interior of a Moquis house), eight folding panoramic views, 16 b/w plates (views and paleontology), and many illustrations in the text. This copy has a duplicate of Plate I (Robinson's Landing) as the frontispiece and lacks the correct frontispiece (Chimney Peak). It is otherwise complete, aside from the two geological maps that are rarely present. Bound in three quarter red morocco and red cloth, with marbled edges and endpapers. Some minor scuffing to the leather, internally a fine copy, with the bookpate of James Wickersham on the front pastedown, and his name stamped in gilt at the base of the spine. Wickersham (1857-1939) was an attorney and judge who served Alaska's delegate to the United States Congress for 14 years. He played a primary role in establishing the Alaska Territorial Legislature, the Alaska Railroad, Mt. McKinley National Park, and the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines. He was also a skilled mountaineer and the author of A Bibliography of Alaska Literature 1724-1924. This copy also has the ink stamp (on the profile) of Elwood Evans (1828-1898), who presumably owned it before Wickersham. Evans was an attorney, politician, and historian from Washington Territory who served as mayor of Olympia and briefly as acting governor of the territory. The Ives Expedition was sent to explore the Colorado River and determine the extent to which it was naviagble. Ives had a steamboat custom built and shipped to the west, led his party up the Colorado to the lower end of the Grand Canyon, and then traveled across the desert to Fort Defiance in Colorado. Farquhar (21) calls this report "one of the most desireable books in the Colorado River field, for it is the first that deals specifically with the river itself. Moreover, the illustrations are remarkable...two from photographs represent perhaps the first use of the camera in Arizona, certainly on the Colorado River....Ives and his staff added immensely to knowledge of the lower canyons, especially those now occupied by the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead." Howes I-92; Sabin 35308; Wagner -Camp 375; Wheat, Transmississippi, 947, 948.