A journal of ramblings through the High Sierras of California by the "University Excursion Party." San Francisco: Francis & Valentine: Commercial Printing House, 517 Clay Street, 1875. 21.5x13.3 cm, pp. [1-5] 6-103 [104: blank], flyleaves at front and rear, 9 plates with mounted photographic prints, original blue cloth, front and rear panels ruled in blind, front panel lettered in gold. First edition. 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 this edition were printed for members of the excursion party. Farquhar (1948), title 14. Currey and Kruska 230. Eberstadt 124 (1949), p. 6. Farquhar 14a. Kurutz, California Books Illustrated with Original Photographs, 1856-1890 27. Robinson 11. Zamorano Select (2010) 64. Very minor extremity wear, else an exceptional copy, complete, clean and with excellent tonality to the photographs. Enclosed in a cloth clamshell box. (#168332).
No statement of printing.