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 from 1855, printed in Washington, D.C., examining routes for a transcontinental railroad, with natural history plates appended for surveyors and scientists. The four plates show fish and snakes drawn as engraved line studies on cream paper, with the fish in side profile and the snakes coiled in dense hatched scale patterns that suggest careful zoological observation rather than decoration.
