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 government survey report issued by the United States War Department in 1855 from Washington, D.C., prepared to help Congress choose a railroad route from the Mississippi to the Pacific. Its plates are natural history studies of mosses, spines, and cactus-like plants drawn in fine pen and graphite line, with a plain scientific layout a designer could borrow for botanical or specimen sheets.
