NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY ACROSS THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, TO THE COLUMBIA RIVER, AND A VISIT TO THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, CHILI, &c. WITH A SCIENTIFIC APPENDIX

Philadelphia: Henry Perkins, 1839.. 352pp. Original publisher's grained and blindstamped cloth, spine gilt. Spine a bit sunned, spine ends and corners worn, neat horizontal split in spine cloth. Contemporary ink ownership inscription on front pastedown. Light scattered foxing, upper outer corner of pp.71-120 creased. Very good. Townsend travelled with Nuttall and Lee on the second Wyeth expedition to Oregon in 1834, to establish trading posts beyond the Rocky Mountains, including Fort Hall in what is now Southeastern Idaho, and Fort William in what is now Portland, Oregon. The party was joined by William Drummond Stewart at Green River, and continued on to Vancouver. Townsend embarked from Vancouver aboard the Columbia for his trip to the Sandwich Islands and Chile, an account of which occupies some forty pages. Townsend's description includes "in-depth observations of the manners and customs of the Indians and of the lives of the fur traders in the Columbia region" (Hill), as well as appendices that contain descriptions and tables of the birds and mammals Townsend found, including new species. Townsend and Nuttall's reports on the natural history of the portions of the West they travelled through during the trip were made available to Audubon for use in Birds of America and Ornithological Biography. Streeter calls Townsend's narrative "one of the best early ones." WAGNER-CAMP 79:1. STREETER SALE 2094. FIELD 1558. TWENEY 89, 77. HILL 1711. HOWES T319. SABIN 96381. TAXONOMIC LITERATURE 14804. FORBES 1183. REESE, BEST OF THE WEST 72.