Report intended to illustrate a map of the hydrographical basin of the upper Mississippi River, made by I. N. Nicollet, while in employ under the bureau of the corps of topographical engineers

FROM THE LIBRARY OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON TERRITORIES. First edition, Senate issue; 26th Congress, 2d Session, document 237. Octavo (9" x 5 11/16", 228mm x 144mm). [Full collation available.] With a large folding engraved map. Bound in contemporary sheep with a blind fillet-and-swag border. On the spine, title ("SENATE/DOCUME/2d.S.26th C.") gilt to red sheep with double gilt fillets top-and bottom; "LIB/ H REP." gilt to black sheep below with double gilt fillets top and bottom. Blind diagonal roll to the edges of the boards. Scuffed at the edges, with patches of wear at the upper edges of the boards. Tanned evenly with passages of mild foxing. Soiling around the map. Stub-tear and hinge-split to the map repaired. Opening 102.3 partially unopened (at the fore of the upper edge). Ink-stamp of the U.S. House of Representatives Library to the title-page and to p. 50, both offsetting, as well as to the upper edge of the text-block (with their DISCARD stamp to the rear paste-down). Ink-stamp of the UVA Law Library to the upper edge of the text-block. Bookplate of the "LIBRARY/COMMITTEE ON/ TERRITORIES. NOT TO BE TAKEN FROM COMMITTEE ROOM./ U. S. HOUSE OF REPS." Pasted to the rear board, with adhesive tanning. Joseph Nicolas Nicollet (or Jean-Nicolas; 1786-1843) was a French-born mathematician and astronomer who, before his emigration to the Unites States in 1832, was professor of astronomy at the Paris Observatory and professor of mathematics at the Collège Louis-le-Grand. Nicollet set off first up the Mississippi on a commercial endeavor, which resulted in the correction of Zebulon Pike's map of the river, which had been the primary source of knowledge of its course since 1810. As a result, Nicollet was employed by the Corps of Topographical Engineers to revise official maps of the trans-Mississippi West. Although poor health prevented him from expanding his survey through the Missouri River, and he died a few months before the publication of the present work, his map -- drawn by the great William Helmsley Emory -- supplemented with a scientific analysis of his surveying models and even a précis of natural history in the areas he traverse -- is one of the great achievements of American cartography. For his contribution, Nicollet is buried in the Congressional Cemetery. The House issue of the report was accompanied by a smaller map, and so the Senate issue has always been the more desirable, even by the members of the House of Representatives. The present example was used by the House Committee on Territories, which operated 1825-1946. Originally given jurisdiction over issues related to non-state U.S. territory, it eventually came to oversee the admission of states into the Union as well as determining their boundaries. The large map was doubtless used in the assessment of statehood for Iowa, Wisconsin and Kansas among others. After its deaccession from the House Library, the volume was in the collection of the University of Virginia Law Library. From the collection of Robert Braun (b. 1928). Braun was born in Vienna and came to America in 1939 as a refugee aboard a Kindertransport. With his wife Nancy he became a devoted naturalist, building a bird-sanctuary and publishing the indispensable Concordance to Audubon's Birds of America, which identified the plants appearing in each plate. Purchased at his sale, Bonham's Skinner 12 November 2024, lot 33. Graff 3022; Howes N 152; Schwartz & Ehrenberg, pp. 265-68 and pl. 165; Sabin 55257; Streeter sale III:1808; Wagner-Camp-Becker 98; Wheat, Transmississippi West II, p. 180.