Descripción
8vo, Lacking the Map. 153pp. [small top margin stain towards rear.] original blind-stamped green cloth. Captain John Mullan (1830-1909) American explorer, road builder, lawyer: worked to fill in the details of the geography of the upper Rocky Mountain region that was known only in outline before the 1850s. This is an excellent important association copy being and fully inscribed to the front free endpaper by the Scottish explorer Robert Brown F.R.S F.R.P.S. Commander Ist. V.I. Victoria, Vancouver Island. Brown arrived in Victoria on May 6.1863. His first expedition was to Great Central Lake, Sproat Lake, Alberni Inlet, and Nootka Sound. Subsequently, he travelled on the Olympic peninsula (Washington) and up the Fraser River. Brown's Scottish sponsors were dissatisfied with the seeds he sent back from these expeditions, and he was dismayed that they considered him a mere seed collector rather than a botanist. He further antagonized his patrons by accepting in May 1864 the position of commander and government agent on the Vancouver Island Exploring Expedition (VIEE,) organized by a committee of prominent Victoria businessmen and funded in part by the colonial government under Governor Arthur Kennedy. Brown's relationship with the committee became uneasy when he realized that its members were primarily interested in the discovery of gold. The expedition succeeded in crossing Vancouver Island at several points, in some instances by new routes. From Cowichan Lake, Brown led a group down the Nitinat River to Whyac along a route approximating the one travelled by Joseph Pemberton in 1857, while another party followed a more arduous route from Cowichan Lake to Port San Juan. Subsequently, Brown and a few others went from Comox to Alberni via Comox Lake and Great Central Lake; another group had the harder task of journeying from Nanaimo to Alberni via the Nanaimo Lakes. The expedition lasted from June 7 to October 21, 1864 and covered an estimated 1,200 miles. The most celebrated achievement of the expedition was its discovery in July of gold on a river that the explorers named after Peter Leech, the second in command. Ironically, this find, which led to the establishment of Leechtown, was made when Brown had briefly left the party and returned to Victoria in order to clarify his relationship with the organizing committee. Brown himself valued more highly the discovery of coal on a river near Comox that was named after him. Although the discovery proved of no immediate commercial value, it was an early indication of coal in the region. Brown's Scottish sponsors continued to be dissatisfied with his dispatches of seeds, and they did not grant his request that his three year contract be renewed. Prior to its termination, Brown travelled in Washington Territory, Oregon, the Queen Charlotte Islands, and northern Vancouver Island. On August 2, 1866, when he was about to leave Vancouver Island, the Daily British Colonist and Victoria Chronicle described him as "a valuable man, who has done more towards exploring its unknown regions, unfolding its natural resources, and drawing attention to the latent wealth of the Island, than any other man in it." Brown's writings on the northwest coast are diverse. Vancouver Island; exploration, 1864 (Victoria, [1865]), a twenty-seven page official report outlining the expedition's route and fixing place-names, was followed in 1869 by "Memoir on the geography of the interior of Vancouver Island," a work which appeared only in German and for which Brown was awarded a doctorate by the University of Rostock (German Democratic Republic) in 1870. Brown had planned to write in addition a popular account of the expedition, illustrated with drawings made by its artist, Frederick Whymper, but he found the market glutted by other accounts of exploration. He published articles ranging from reports on the botany, ornithology, and geology of the area he explored to sketches of life in colonial society. Excellent Copy. N° de ref. del artículo 000405
Contactar al vendedor
Denunciar este artículo
