1810 Gass - Lewis and Clark - WITH RARE EARLY MAP

Reise auf dem Missuri Bis Zum Stillen Meere - Travels on the Missouri to the Pacific.

Weimar - Germany: Landes - Industrie - Comptoir, 1810. First Edition. 8vo, 486 Pages, with a map, bound in contemporary continental European paper boards. Near fine and very crisp inside. Text in German. This is the 1810 Edition of an obscure and rare Geographical publication issued in Weimar/ Germany in the late 1700's and early 1800's named 'Geographische Ephemeriden.' This volume contains a 27 page narrative and one of the earliest published maps of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Patrick Gass, an expedition member, kept a journal and published the first primary account of the expedition in 1807, which appeared seven years before the 1814 official account. Gass' book did not have a map, however it was translated in 1810 into French together with - for the very first time - a map by Tardieu. Of the French Edition Wheat notes that "Tardieu had no Lewis and Clark map to assist him, but he apparently had at hand Meriwether Lewis's brief letter-report to Jefferson, and he did his best to locate on his map at least a few of the Expedition's points of geographic interest. His available topography, based as it was on Soulard, was both skimpy and erroneous, but his use of the quoted legends showed much ingenuity."

In contrast to this, the US Geological Survey notes: 'Clark used this knowledge [from the expedition] to construct a new map of the West, which he completed in 1810.' PerhapsTardieu was able to draw on Clark's map to some degree. The French edition also adds two letters of William Clark not published in other editions of Gass; that of April 2, 1805 from Fort Mandan, written to William Henry Harrison; and that of Sept 23, 1806 upon returning, written to his brother. These two letters which give detailed topographical information and comprise page 355 to 373 of the present work, are published here and translated into German together with a map titled in French 'Carte Pour Servir au Voyage des Capts. Lewis et Clarke a l'Ocean Pacifique. This fold-out map measures 7.5 x 9.5 inches and is much larger than the map published by Tardieu. This is one of the earliest maps based on Tardieu and primary reports by Clarke himself that are extant of this expedition.