Hayden & Moran

The exploration of Wyoming + Idaho

Including illustrations by Thomas Moran

The earliest broad, scientific study of the Greater Yellowstone region

F.V. Hayden, The Twelfth Annual Report of the Hayden Survey. Parts I & II, 1883, Washington, Government Printing Office.

Twelfth Annual Report of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories: A report of progress of the exploration in Wyoming and Idaho for the year 1878. Parts I & II, Government Printing Office, 1883.

A near fine, complete edition of a scarce and important 2-volume monograph documenting the Hayden Survey’s scientific findings through much of the the Rocky Mountain region, including areas of the Gros Ventre, Green River and Wind River basins and ranges and of the Yellowstone region. Both volumes are in near fine condition, in clean original covers in dark brown textured fabric. The binding is sound, with original gilt-lettered backstrip. Inside are plethora maps and illustrations, complete as originally printed, and in near pristine condition.

As director of the Survey of the Territories that began in 1871, F.V. Hayden recruited artist Thomas Moran and photographer William Henry Jackson to accompany a survey team of scientists into the Yellowstone and adjacent areas to visually capture the landscape and its resources. This two volume set is the last of the multi-year report, comprising the research and documentation of an extraordinary team in an effort to create a picture of the land’s scientific qualities, value, and potential. The report includes descriptions of the flora, fauna, thermal features and geology of the Yellowstone region, the Wind River district, and the Gros Ventre range with hundreds of illustrations, figures and maps.

Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden (1829-1887), the Collection of the Smithsonian Institution Archives

These two volumes comprise the research and documentation of a team as they explore the region to create a picture of its scientific qualities, its value and its potential. The compilation of artistry and technical writing shows the effort of these exploreres to adequately explain and depict a landscape never, until that point, documented so extensively. Amid hundreds of illustrations are four chromolithographs by notable western artist Thomas Moran, including several of Yellowstone’s Hot Springs, accompanied by reports of the thermal features there. Reports include a study of the geology of the Wind River district, fossils of Florrisant, Colorado, and zoological studies of the region (from crustaceans to birds).

The Hayden Survey Reports were instrumental in creating a vision of the west, as we know it today, in an era when it was a great unknown to easterners, to the United States government, and to the rest of the world. The earliest scientific treatise on the Yellowstone region to be completed with such detail, this massive monograph is both science, government document, landscape portfolio, and a compendium of the things this extraordinary group of men experienced in their travels. ~Sold~