L. W. Currey, Inc.

LeCONTE, JOSEPH. A journal of ramblings through the High Sierra of California by the "University Excursion Party." [By] Joseph LeConte. San Francisco: The Sierra Club, 1930. 21.5x14.5 cm, pp. [i-v] vi-x [xi-xvi] [1-3] 4-148 [149-151] 152 [153: blank] [154: colophon] [155-156: blank], flyleaves at front and rear, 5 inserted plates, title page and drop title have red ruled borders, original blue gray boards with white linen shelf back, printed paper label affixed to spine panel, fore and bottom edges untrimmed. Third edition. Fifteen hundred copies printed for the Sierra Club by Taylor & Taylor, San Francisco. Joseph LeConte (1823-1901), a native of Georgia and a pupil of Louis Agassiz, was appointed professor of geology and natural history of the newly established University of California in 1869, a post he held until his death in Yosemite Valley in 1901. LeConte's A Journal of Ramblings ... is an account of his first journey into the Sierra Nevada. Of this excursion during July and August 1870 he later wrote: "... at the end of the first session of the University, eight of the students invited Professor Frank Soule, Jr., and me to join them in a camping trip to the Sierras, and we joyfully accepted. This trip was almost an era in my life. We were gone six weeks and visited the Yosemite, the high Sierra, Lake Mono and the volcanoes in the vicinity, and Lake Tahoe. The trip was made in the roughest style of camp life, each man carrying his bedding and extra clothing in a roll behind his saddle, and a packhorse bearing the food and camp utensils for the party. We had no tent, but slept under trees with only the sky above us. I never enjoyed anything else so much in my life -- perfect health, the merry party of young men, the glorious scenery, and, above all, the magnificent opportunity for studying mountain origin and structure. Observations made on this and later trips formed the basis for ten or eleven papers on this most fundamental and fascinating subject and on others closely related. I subsequently made many similar trips, but this remained the most delightful ..." (The Autobiography of Joseph LeConte, ed. William Dallam Armes [New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1903], pp. 247-48). Portions of LeConte's A Journal of Ramblings ... appeared later as "Rough Notes of a Camping Trip," a series of three articles published in the October, November, and December 1885 issues of Overland Monthly. According to Joseph N. LeConte, son of Professor LeConte, about 120 copies of the 1875 first edition were printed for members of the excursion party. This third edition adds a foreword and notes by Francis P. Farquhar. "Although nothing can quite equal the charm of the original thin blue volume with its photographs, the 1930 edition is a very attractive book." - Farquhar (1948), p. 59. Farquhar (1948), title 14. Currey and Kruska 230. Farquhar 14c. A bit of ghosting to tissue guard from the frontispiece. A fine copy. The unprinted glassine dust jacket is tanned (mostly spine panel) and lightly chipped at edges. Provenance: presentation inscription by Farquhar on the front free endpaper: "For Harold N. Seeger / with the regards of / Francis P. Farquhar / December 1930." This is probably the distinguished San Francisco printer Harold N. Seeger of the firm Johnck & Seeger. (#166093).