Reports of explorations and surveys, to ascertain the most practicable and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean
A United States War Department survey report printed in Washington in 1855, issued to find the best railroad route from the Mississippi to the Pacific and documenting the western territory it crossed. Its plates are natural history studies, and the four shown here are a conifer cone with branch and seed details, a set of bivalve shells, a flowering plant specimen with dissected blossoms, and fine line drawings of small scale-like parts. For a designer they offer crisp, hand-drawn botanical and shell diagrams with precise labelling, useful for scientific-style layouts.
