Descripción
210 pp. New edition; original, dark green cloth with decorative gold and black stamped front cover and spine; back cover decorative blind stamp; gilt edges; dark brown endpapers; illustrated with 68 plates---many are exquisite renderings. Binding tight; boards clean; corners rubbed; head and tail of spine rubbed; internally fine; no dust jacket; see additional images provided. Quoting Borba 433: "Joseph and Franz Keller, father and son, were German engineers in the service of Brazil who undertook several explorations into the interior of the country. Their remarkable reports appeared in official publications [and formed the initial studies of what would later become the infamous Madera-Mamor? railroad]. Franz Keller describes the most interesting of the expeditions. He married the daughter of the typographer, Leusinger, in Rio, and subsequently signed his name Keller-Leusinger." According to Borba the first edition was published in London, Chapman and Hall, 1874. Quoting Borba 433: "There is another edition in English, printed in Philadelphia, J.B. Lippincott, 1875, with identical pagination." Quoting the Preface, "In June 1867, my father and I, who had been studying the maps and plans of a former expedition in the province of Paran?, were commissioned by the MInister of Public Works at Rio de Janeiro to explore the Madeira River, and to project a railroad along its bank where, by reason of the rapids, navigation was rendered impossible. Since the end of the last century--when, in consequence of the treaty of Ildefonso in 1777, Portuguese astronomers and surveyors ascenced the Madeira---no regular or reliable plans had been executed of the immense forest-covered valley. The bold descent effected some twenty years ago by the American naval officer Gibbon, I may observe, was too hurried, and undertaken with too slender means; and another expedition, commanded by the Brazilian engineer, Major Coutinho, proved to be a complete failure, though certainly not for lack of means. Upon the ensuing of peace, after the long war with Paraguay, the old question of a way of communication between the Brazilian coast and the province of Mato Grosso came to the front. . . it was thought necessary that a thorough exploration should be made. General attention was, moreover, directed to that remote corner of the vast realm by the sudden appearance of a new Steam Navigation Company on the Lower Madeira, and by the recent opening of the Amazon River to the flags of all nations; the realisation of the full benefit of which latter measure depends on its extension to the lateral rivers as well. The following pages embrace, in addition to a summary of the most important hydrographic results of the voyage, my remarks on the inhabitants, the vegetation, the products, and other topics of interest in connection with these countries, not in the dry form originally assumed by them of a diary, but in the more inviting shape of chapters, under which easier access may be had to the whole." Size: 34 x 26 cm. 0.0.
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