The Ashley-Smith explorations and the discovery of a central route to the Pacific 1822-1829 with the original journals edited by Harrison Clifford Dale ... revised edition. Glendale, California: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1941. 23.2x15.7 cm, pp. [1-15] 16-360 [361-362: blank], 3 inserted plates, 2 inserted maps, one in color and folded (plates and maps are included in the publisher's pagination), original green cloth, spine panel stamped in gold, top edge gilt, other edges untrimmed. Second edition, revised. This work initiated the modern period of critical study of the expeditions of William Henry Ashley and Jedediah Strong Smith, "two divisions of one enterprise, the discovery and utilization of a central route to the Pacific by way of the Platte, the interior basin, and the Colorado river" (preface, p. [15]). In August Smith's party set out from the 1826 rendezvous on a "South West Expedition" in search of beaver. By the spring of 1827 they were in central California, having entered the Mexican territory via the Mojave Desert route. The party elected to return to the Great Salt Lake through the Sierra Nevada. In May 1827, after two unsuccessful attempts due to heavy snow, Smith's party crossed the Sierra crest near the present-day Ebbetts Pass, the first crossing of the Sierra Nevada by European men. For an analysis of Smith's route see Francis P. Farquhar, History of the Sierra Nevada (1965), pages [23]-29. See Wagner-Camp, rev. Becker (1982), item 34 (note) regarding collaboration of Farquhar's choice of Smith's crossing of the Sierra Nevada by the Ebbets Pass route, resulting from the discovery of a transcript of part of Smith's journal published in 1977 as The Southwest Expedition of Jedediah S. Smith: His Personal Account of the Journey to California, 1826-1827, edited by George R. Brooks (Glendale: Arthur H. Clark, 1977). A fine, bright copy. (#166281).
"Revised Edition" on title page.