Item #JLR0740 A series of charts, with sailing directions, embracing surveys of the Farallones, entrance to the Bay of San Francisco, Bays of San Francisco and San Pablo, Straits of Carquines and Suisun Bay, confluence and deltic branches of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, and the Sacramento River (with the Middle Fork) to the American River, including the cities of Sacramento and Boston, State of California. Cadwalader Ringgold.
A series of charts, with sailing directions, embracing surveys of the Farallones, entrance to the Bay of San Francisco, Bays of San Francisco and San Pablo, Straits of Carquines and Suisun Bay, confluence and deltic branches of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, and the Sacramento River (with the Middle Fork) to the American River, including the cities of Sacramento and Boston, State of California
A series of charts, with sailing directions, embracing surveys of the Farallones, entrance to the Bay of San Francisco, Bays of San Francisco and San Pablo, Straits of Carquines and Suisun Bay, confluence and deltic branches of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, and the Sacramento River (with the Middle Fork) to the American River, including the cities of Sacramento and Boston, State of California
A series of charts, with sailing directions, embracing surveys of the Farallones, entrance to the Bay of San Francisco, Bays of San Francisco and San Pablo, Straits of Carquines and Suisun Bay, confluence and deltic branches of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, and the Sacramento River (with the Middle Fork) to the American River, including the cities of Sacramento and Boston, State of California
A series of charts, with sailing directions, embracing surveys of the Farallones, entrance to the Bay of San Francisco, Bays of San Francisco and San Pablo, Straits of Carquines and Suisun Bay, confluence and deltic branches of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, and the Sacramento River (with the Middle Fork) to the American River, including the cities of Sacramento and Boston, State of California
A series of charts, with sailing directions, embracing surveys of the Farallones, entrance to the Bay of San Francisco, Bays of San Francisco and San Pablo, Straits of Carquines and Suisun Bay, confluence and deltic branches of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, and the Sacramento River (with the Middle Fork) to the American River, including the cities of Sacramento and Boston, State of California
A series of charts, with sailing directions, embracing surveys of the Farallones, entrance to the Bay of San Francisco, Bays of San Francisco and San Pablo, Straits of Carquines and Suisun Bay, confluence and deltic branches of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, and the Sacramento River (with the Middle Fork) to the American River, including the cities of Sacramento and Boston, State of California

A series of charts, with sailing directions, embracing surveys of the Farallones, entrance to the Bay of San Francisco, Bays of San Francisco and San Pablo, Straits of Carquines and Suisun Bay, confluence and deltic branches of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, and the Sacramento River (with the Middle Fork) to the American River, including the cities of Sacramento and Boston, State of California

Washington: printed by Jno. T. Towers, 1852. Fourth edition, with additions.

Quarto (11” x 7 3/8”, 279mm x 189mm): binder’s blank, 14 2-64 [$1 signed]. 24 leaves, pp. 1-5 (title, copyright, dedication, blank, introduction) 6-48. With 8 tinted lithographed plates and 6 folding lithographed charts.

Bound in the publisher’s green blocked cloth, the central vignette gilt (“MEMOIR AND MAPS OF CALIFORNIA”).

A little sunned at the spine, but overall unusually bright. Splits and fraying at the spine, with small losses. Bumped at the fore-corners, with some soiling to the upper edge of the rear board. The text remarkably free of foxing, with just a little mild even tanning. Some fraying, stub-tears and peripheral browning to the maps. An unusually fresh example.


Cadwalader Ringgold (1802–1867) was a naval officer, attaining in 1849 the rank of Commander, from a distinguished Maryland family. It was as a lowly lieutenant in Wilkes’s Exploring Expedition (1838–1842), however, that Ringgold had the opportunity to survey the West Coast. He returned in 1849 — “when the tide of emigration was beyond all example, and when the magnificent expanse of waters groaned under the weight of commerce” (p. 5) — and through 1850 continued to survey California, which following the gold rush had become a lodestone of Manifest Destiny. The Series of charts is a rutter — a handbook for sailors, with visual cues (marks) for navigating difficult passages — which will have been particularly attractive to those intending to ply the Pacific waters. The first edition of the work, published 1851, was unillustrated, and was followed in the same year by an illustrated issue (and a second unillustrated edition). Demand continued strongly enough to merit four further editions in 1852, of which this is the third (i.e., the fourth illustrated edition).

Much ink has been spilled on the number of plates present (Howes, Kurutz and Sabin calling for 8 plates). In the first (illustrated) edition, there are 11 plates. Streeter calls the plates of the first edition the best, but Heckrotte (regarding the present example) notes that “based on a comparison, there is no basis for that statement.” It should be made explicit that despite the 8 plates in the present example — the number in both fourth editions Arader has handled — nothing from the first edition is missing, but they have instead simply been doubled up (viz. 12 views on 8 plates rather than 12 (the two views beginning “Mark for Invincible Buoy…” are also on one plate in the first edition) on 11). The order is somewhat variable; in the present example the plates are as follows:

  1. “View of San Francisco from Yerba Buena Island” (as frontispiece)
  2. “Entrance to San Francisco”
  3. “View of Sacramento City from the west bank”
  4. “View of Benicia from the Anchorage East of Seal Island.”
  5. “View of Monte Diablo from Garnet Island.” and “View from the Forks of the Sacramento.”
  6. “Mark for Invincible Buoy Point Smith, east end of Angel I. on with Signal Hill” and “Mark for Invincible Buoy North extreme of Marin I.s on with Clump of trees north of San Rafael”
  7. “Mark for Tongue Shoal” and “Entrance to the Sacramento River”
  8. “Marks for entering the Sacramento and its Forks at their confluence” and “Mark for entering the second section of the Middle Fork of the Sacramento River”

Howes R 303; Kurutz 536e; Peters II pp. 112-113; Sabin 71425; Streeter Sale 2679 (first edn.).

Item #JLR0740

Price: $3,250

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