PBA Galleries

Large folding lithographed map from Emory's Notes of a Military Reconnoissance from Fort Leavenworth, in Missouri to San Diego, in California. 75.5x162 cm. (30x64"), plus California coast and Pacific extending beyond border.

Important map which accompanied Emory's superb study of the lands newly wrested from the Mexican government. As Wagner-Camp notes, "his report was a major contribution to the geographical knowledge of North America. His map, in which he limited himself to recording only the data which he and his assistants had actually observed, was the first accurate depiction of that vast area, and is still regarded as one of the landmarks of American cartography. The report includes sections on the plants and animals, as well as on the geology and the prehistoric town sites and other archeological remains. Emory's descriptions of the various Indian tribes that he encountered were steps toward the newly-forming discipline -Anthropology- concerned with primitive man." This large map is called by Wheat "a document of towering significance in the cartographic history of the West," and "epoch-making." See Wheat Transmississippi 544; Cowan p.195; Graff 1249; Howes E145; Wagner-Camp 148; Zamorano Eighty 33.