PBA Galleries

268 pp.Seventeen folding maps and fourteen full-page lithographed plates. (4to) 29.422.7 cm (11½x9”) burgundy cloth with gilt titles.

The truly fine lithographed plates were executed by T. Sinclair & Son after photographs by Timothy H. O'Sullivan. The many maps illustrate the area in detail.

They depict scenes in camp with the expedition, native settlements, etc.  O'Sullivan is known chiefly for his important photographs of the battlefields of the Civil War, but his work with various American exploratory expeditions is equally noteworthy, especially when the hardships he endured in the field are acknowledged.  The year after the publication of this work, O'Sullivan contracted tuberculosis.  He died shortly after his 1880 appointment as official photographer for the U.S. Treasury.  This important expedition laid the ground work for what was to become the Panama Canal.