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Collection of Wheeler's Annual Reports including: 1874, 1875 (2 copies), 1876 (2 copies), 1877, 1878 (2 copies), 1879, 1880 plus atlas volumes for 1876, 1877, 1888. All original wrappers or boards except 1 in later library cloth [1875] and one lacking binding [1878]. Illustrated with plates and maps.

"Representing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Wheeler surveyed some 361,000 square miles of the southwest...Wheeler's primary objective was to prepare a detailed topographic map of the West. In pursuit of this goal he divided the area of the West into ninety-five 'principal' rectangles, each rectangle comprising 2 degrees 45' minutes of longitude and 1 degree 40' minutes of latitude, to be covered in four atlas sheets." (Schwartz & Ehrenberg, pp. 304-306). Wheeler's survey was the most ambitious of the great post-Civil War surveys of the West, in the area covered and in the breadth of attention paid to the natural sciences.