KEATING, William H. Narrative of an Expedition to the Source of St. Peter's River, Lake Winnepeek, Lake of the Woods, &C. & C. Performed in the Year 1823...Compiled from the notes of Major Long, Messrs. Say, Keating, and Colhoun.... Philadelphia: Carey & Lea, 1824. Quarto, Two volumes. vol. 1, pp. half title, xii, 2, 439, 4 plates, frontispiece and folding maps. Vol. 2, pp. half title, vi; 459, frontispiece and 9 plates.

The set is complete and in the original calf with gilt titles, hinges repaired on both volumes, bindings are tight and clean. X-lib. German Society of Philadelphia with small book plate on each paste down, later owners small book plate on one paste down. Light foxing and toning to end sheets, frontispieces and titles, text and remaining plates are clean, minor spotting to map. A very good set.

FREE SHIPPING ON ALL BOOKS

A prominent mineralogist and chemist associated with the University of Pennsylvania, William H. Keating (1799-1844) was a central figure in the scientific community in Philadelphia during the 1820s and 1830s. He was active in the American Philosophical Society and Academy of Natural Sciences, and a founding member of the Franklin Institute, An excellent field geologist, Keating was official geologist on Stephen Harriman Long's (1784-1864 Army Explorer and Surveyor) expedition to the Great Lakes in 1823. His work with Long represented one of the first topographic geological and mineralogical surveys of the Great Lakes, for which he was given responsibility for compiling and publishing the results as “Narrative of an Expedition to the Source of St. Peter's River”.
The work is also an encyclopedia of material relating to the Indians of the region territory. The chapters regarding the customs, character, and numbers of the Sioux and Chippeway tribes, are among the most accurate for the time period and includes vocabularies of several tribes. The plates, engraved by Hill after the drawings of Samuel Seymour, illustrate scenes and Indians on the upper Mississippi. The map depicts the Great Lakes, the headwaters of the Mississippi, and the Red River of the North, with the river origins and the complicated hydrography of Wisconsin, Minnesota and the border area shown in far greater detail than ever before.