Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Book in excellent unread/unused condition. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> THE material for the following pages was collected since 1860. Leaving the Eastern States in that year and crossing the plains to Arizona I remained there nearly a year in charge of silver mines. Being forced by the Indian troubles to abandon that territory I entered Mexico and after a midsummer journey over the deserts of the Pacific coast between Sonora and California reached the latter State Leaving California with one companion Prof. William P. Blake both of us engaged by the Japanese Government to explore the island of Yesso we sailed for Japan via the Sandwich islands. The engagement with the Japanese Government lasted but little more than a year when it was suddenly brought to an end by the fierce political troubles of that time. It was during hasty journeys of reconnoissance that the notes relating to Yesso were jotted down and at a time when I hoped to be able to make a much more thorough study of the geology of Japan. It was with true regret that I left the service of a government whose courtesy had made a lasting impression on my memory and with whose struggles for progress as against exclusiveness I deeply sympathized. Crossing to China after a short visit to Nagasaki I ascended the Yangtse Kiang into Central Hunan and to the frontier of Sz’chuen a great part of the journey being made in a small Chinese boat and occupying four months of the spring and summer of 1863. (LL)