CALIFORNIA AND ITS GOLD REGIONS; WITH A GEOGRAPHICAL AND TOPOGRAPHICAL VIEW OF THE COUNTRY, ITS MINERAL AND AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES...

New York: Stringer and Townsend, 1849.. 144pp. Dbd. Titlepage soiled. Upper outer corner of first fifty-five pages gnawed, not affecting text. Scattered light foxing, a stain in upper outer corner or second half of text. A decent copy, lacking the frontispiece engraving and large folding frontispiece map. According to Wheat, "One of the best of the early books on California printed for gold seekers." Robinson, who had produced a book on the Mexican-American War shortly before, drew on both official and unofficial sources for this book. Kurutz calls this work "a fine anthology of several of the earliest reports of the gold discovery, conditions in California, history of the region, and ways to reach the diggings...." Among the sources drawn on are reports by Mason, Fremont, Larkin, Emory, and Kearny; and newspaper accounts. Robinson discusses several routes to California, recommending the northern Overland Trail as the best. Howes, Kurutz, and Sabin note two issues, of 137 and 144 pages, of which this is the latter, printed with an appendix on pages 125-144. A map, not present in this copy, is also highly praised. This copy also lacks the frontispiece view of San Francisco which Howes notes is "sometimes found, inserted, but was not issued with the book." HOWES R366, "b." WHEAT GOLD RUSH 168. GRAFF 3527. COWAN, p.537. KURUTZ 539a. SABIN 72070.