* FREMONT, John Charles (1813-1890). Report of The Exploring Expedition to The Rocky Mountains in the year 1842, and to Oregon and North California in the years 1843-'44. Washington, D. C.: Printed by Order of the Senate, by Gales and Seaton, 1845.

8vo (229 x 132 mm). Lithographed folding map in rear pocket (stained at fold with old repairs), 4 lithographed maps, 23 lithographed plates. Publisher's blind-stamped brown cloth (lacking front flyleaf, recased with repairs to spine ends and joints).

FIRST EDITION, the Senate issue, with the astronomical and meteorological observations omitted from the House issue and subsequent editions. The two reports, written with the help of Fremont's wife Jessie Benton, "caught the public imagination: images of Fremont's guide, the then little-known Christopher 'Kit' Carson, riding bareback across the prairie, and Fremont himself, raising a flag on a Rocky Mountain peak, entered the national mythology" (Pamela Herr, American National Biography). The reports mapped out all California rivers south of the American River and the three Colorado rivers. They became essential guides for gold rush travelers and settlers heading for California and the Oregon Territory. Fremont stresses the importance of Preuss's large map of the routes traversed in both expeditions: "it fills up the vast geographical chasm" between Missouri and the Columbia River. Historians ever since have warmly agreed, calling it "monumental in its breadth--a classic of exploring literature" (Goetzmann, Exploration and Empire, p.248). Wheat deems it "as important a step forward from the earlier western maps...as...Pike, Long, and Lewis and Clark in their day" (Transmississippi, p.495). Cohen Mapping the West pp.130-133; Field 565; Graff 1436; Howes F-370; Sabin 25845; Streeter VI:3131; Wagner-Camp 115:1.