12 volumes, 8vo; and atlas volume, elephant folio. Numerous lithographs, wood-engraved plates, wood-engravings in the text, chromolithograph plates, large folding maps and plates (some offsetting, spotting throughout, minor tears). Original black cloth (rubbing, some soiling, minor losses at spine ends, some volumes rebacked).

FIRST EDITION of the complete set of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories Annual Reports including the much sought-after atlas. The United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories was established as an agency under the Department of the Interior on 2 March 1867 with its stated aim being to complete a geographical survey of the newly-admitted State of Nebraska, however, the survey's scope would eventually encompass all territories adjacent to the Rocky Mountains. In 1871 Dr. Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden led the first surveying expedition into the Yellowstone region of western Wyoming; the resulting work, Preliminary Report of the United States Geological Survey of Montana and Portions of Adjacent Territories; Being a Fifth Annual Report of Progress, was instrumental both in Congress establishing Yellowstone as the first U.S. National Park and in encouraging westward expansion. Phillips Atlases, 1473 (atlas only); Schwartz and Ehrenberg, p. 307 (atlas only).