[32], 287, [5] pp. Folding copper-engraved map, hand-colored in outline. (12mo) 15.8x8.7 cm (6¼x3¼"), period calf, spine tooled in gilt, raised bands.
The rare first printing of the important fifth volume of this compilation letters of Jesuit missionaries, containing, among other significant features, the first publication of Kino's important map of the Gulf of California and adjacent land masses, “Passage par Terre a la Californie,” establishing that California was not an island. Streeter Sale 2424 notes that: "The Lettres contains the first translation of Father Francisco Piccolo's 'Informe del Estado de la Neuva Christiandad de California,' the first printed description of California to receive wide circulation - mainly in translation. The map is the famous Kino map of California, which appeared for the first time in this book. The map is remarkably accurate, and remained the best map of much of the area until the twentieth century." The map, measuring 23.5x21 cm. (9¼x8¼"), illustrates Kino's discoveries in the Southwest, and demonstrated that California was, after all, not an island. Describing the manuscript map on which it was based, Wheat writes "On this small but influential map, which extends south on the peninsula to Loreto and s. Fran.co Xavier de Bige, and to the Rio de Cinaloa on the Sonora coast, the Gila (termed the R. Hila) is correctly shown flowing westerly into the Colorado River not far from the larger river's mouth... Kino's map exerted a great influence on contemporary cartography, especially after the French mapmaker, Guillaume Delisle, adopted the redoubtable missionary's thesis..." Howes L299; Sabin 40697; Wagner: Northwest Coast 483; Wagner: Spanish Southwest 74A; Wheat, Transmississippi I, pp. 75-76, #89.