Reports of explorations and surveys, to ascertain the most practicable and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean
This is a United States War Department survey report of 1855, printed in Washington, D.C., that gathered route explorations for a transcontinental railroad from the Mississippi to the Pacific. The natural history plates in its volume show reptiles and fishes drawn in fine pen-and-ink with careful scale and pattern work. A designer could take from them the precise hatching and scale textures that describe organic surfaces and coiled forms.
