With 15 Maps of Plans
An extensive early guidebook for immigrants to the Mississippi Valley and points West and South. Illustrated with a suite of detailed maps and city plans by J. Knight, who seems to have regularly worked with the publisher H. S. Tanner. The maps were later redone in lithograph for Traugott Bromme's Rathgeber für Auswanderungslustige (Stuttgart, 1846).
The first ten chapters present a general overview of geography, history, manners and customs, climate and soil, of the Mississippi Valley region. There is also a chapter describing the Indian tribes of the Valley. This is followed by individual chapters on the various states and territories. A disscussion of steam boats is included.
The frontispiece is a handsome engraved map of the United States, with nice original hand color. The state maps are as follows:
- Pennsylvania & New Jersey
- Virginia, Maryland and Delaware
- Ohio & Indiana
- Michigan
- Kentucky & Tennessee
- Illinois & Missouri
- Louisiana & Mississippi
- Georgia & Alabama [includes West Florida]
- New York
The city plans are of Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, New Orleans, Mobile, and Pensacola (the latter three on one sheet), with another sheet with four small maps of St. Louis, Lead Region, Lexington, and Nashville.
Chapter VII is on the climate of the Valley of the Mississippi in reference to temperature and diseases; this article was written by Dr. Daniel Drake, of Cincinnati, and gives in a short compass a more philosophical and satisfactory view of this subject than is to be found elsewhere - Thomson.
This work is usually ascribed by Robert Baird, though Buck and Sabin attribute it to Robert Bache. The present 1834 edition is revised and improved from the original 1832 edition. According to the introductory note: "Much matter... had been added. And the entire work has been brought up, as far as it can be done, to the present state of the West."