[iii]-xviii, [2], 482 pp. Large folding copper-engraved map (22¾x25½" plus margins) of the western and middle portions of North America. 8½x5¼, recently rebound in period-style sheep, raised spine bands, morocco lettering piece, new endpapers.
Originally published in 1840 as a Senate document, titled: "Memoir, Historical and Political, on the Northwest Coast of North America...," the present edition is much enlarged, with a new map. Wheat describes the map at some length: "Robert Greenhow published in 1844 a large map wholly different from his Burr-drawn map of 1840, drawn this time by George H. Ringgold (not the Cadwalader Ringgold of later California coastal chart fame). It covered `the Western and Middle Portions of North America,' to illustrate Greenhow's History of Oregon and California.... The map, while well drawn and engraved, contains nothing original, though it is up-to-date enough to have a bit of Fremont in it, and `Eustis Lake' is here called `Sublette Lake,' a survival of Jedediah Smith through Burr or Wilkes. No northern boundary of the `Oregon Region' is shown west of the Rockies, and since Greenhow was an advocate of at least 54o 40', he did not even carry the northern boundary across from the mountains on that line. It is said that his History of Oregon and California grew out of his 1840 Memoir. And his reply to Thomas Falconer, and the latter's rejoinder, followed by a sur-reply and a sur-rejoinder, and so on, form an amusing chapter of Western history." Cowan p.249; Graff 1652; Howes G389; Sabin 28362; Smith 3842; Wheat Transmississippi 491.