HEDIN, Sven (1865-1952). Scientific Results of a Journey in Central Asia, 1899-1902. Translated by John Thomas Bealby (1858-1944). Stockholm: Lithographic Institute of the General Staff of the Swedish Army, 1904-07.
6 volumes in 9, large 4to; atlas volume in 3 parts, folio. 420 plates and maps (36 of which are double-page or folding, and many in color), 13 plates with 52 meteorological maps; Atlas volumes contains 85 double-page maps and 13 double-page plates with 27 facsimiles of Hedin’s original maps. (Small marginal tape repairs on verso of few leaves in vol. I). Text volumes: original printed wrappers in red and black (rebacked, extremities professionally repaired, few old repairs). Atlas volumes: original stiff printed brown wrappers (spines perished); housed in a folding box. Provenance: John Thomas Bealby (inscription from Hedin, dated 18 July 1904); James Charelton Young (inscriptions from Hedin, dated 26 January 1909); Cornell College Library (stamps on covers); “A.B” (small booklabel in atlas).
FIRST EDITION, LIMITED ISSUE, ONE OF 300 COPIES OF THIS MONUMENTAL WORK FROM ONE OF THE GREATEST FIGURES IN CENTRAL ASIAN EXPLORATION, INSCRIBED BY HEDIN IN 7 VOLUMES, THE FIRST VOLUME BEING PRESENTED TO THE TRANSLATOR OF THIS WORK. In the second volume, Hedin writes a lengthy holograph note describing his journeys to the Lop-Nor Region: “This volume contains the description of my journeys in the Lop-nor Region during which I had an excellent opportunity to show that the old Chinese maps of Lop-nor’s geographical position is quite right and that Prochevalsky[sic] the Russian discoverer of Kara-Koshun was wrong in believing that this lake was identical with the real historical Chinese Lop-nor. I have been able to show that these are two different lakes of which Lop-nor is now dry, and Kara-Koshun a quite new formation.” In volume V, Part I, Hedin writes another lengthy holographic note describing the meteorological observations he made of a “formally quite unknown region”. The other four volumes are inscribed on the front wrappers to James Charelton Young and describe the contents of each volume.
Hedin made four expeditions to Central Asia from 1893 to 1935, locating the sources of several major rivers, introduced the Trans-Himalaya mountain range to the West, and discovered numerous remains of cities, grave sites and the Great Wall of China in the deserts of the Tarim Basin. Hedin covered a distance of 14,600 miles, “more than the distance from the north Pole to the south Pole”. In his second expedition, Hedin traveled from Russian Tirkestan to Kashgar, along the Tarim River into the Lop Desert and Eastern Tibet. In May 1901, he left Charkhlik, on the edge of the Taklamakan Desert, intending to cross Tibet in a diagonal direction to the sources of the Indus River. On his final penetration southward, he was stopped within five days' journey of Lhasa, whereupon he turned his caravan westward towards Leh and India. The expedition resulted in 1,149 pages of maps, on which Hedin depicted newly discovered lands. He was the first to describe yardang formations in the Lop Desert. Henze II:484; Hess, p. 49; Yakushi H176.