DUTTON, Clarence Edward (1841–1912). Atlas to Accompany the Monograph of the Tertiary History of the Grand Cañon District. Washington D.C. and New York: Department of the Interior United States Geographical Survey; Julius Bien & Co., 1882.
Large Folio. Lithograph title–page and table of contents, 20 (of 22) double–page plates including 10 color lithograph maps (lacking sheets II and III) and 10 panoramic views after W.H. Holmes and Thomas Moran (some dampstaining at upper margins, light dust soiling to title–page and plate margins, sheet XVI and XVIII with some splitting along fold, sheet XVII with some surface damage). Original gilt–lettered cloth (rebacked, library call numbers at foot of spine and at corner of upper cover, extremes worn and rubbed, institutional stamp on front pastedown, evidence of bookplate removal on rear pastedown).
FIRST EDITION of the “one of the greatest if not the greatest of all Grand Canyon books” (Farquhar). The atlas was published as a result of the great scientific expeditions to the American West after the Civil War with several picturesque views illustrating the Grand Canyon including those by W.H. Holmes whom William Goetzmann calls “the greatest artist–topographer and man of many talents that the West ever produced. He could sketch panoramas of twisted mountain ranges, sloping mountains, escarpments, plateaus, canyons, fault blocks, and grassy meadows accurately depicting hundreds of miles of terrain. They were better than maps and better than photographs because he gets details of stratigraphy that light and shadow obscured from the camera… his illustrations for [this work] are masterpieces of realism and draftsmanship as well as feats of imaginative observation. Goetzmann, pp. 512–13; Farquhar, Colorado River 73; Reese, Best of the West 197.