Scarce map and accompanying article written by Dr. W.A. Bell for the Royal Geographical Society On the Basin of Colorado and the Great Basin of North America. The article was presented to the RGS on March 8, 1868.
From 1867 to 1868, Bell travelled extensively in the region as part of the surveying expedition organized by the Kansas Pacific Railway Company. The survey commenced in the Spring of 1867, in search of "the best route for a Southern Railway between the Pacific Coast through Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and the southern part of California."
Bell covered the coast from Ft. Wallace, Kansas through New Mexico, Arizona and Sonora to the mouth of the Colorado River and then to Cabo San Lucas. Another route covers the regions from Albuquerque, across Arizona to Needles, California, on to Los Angeles, San Diego and Yuma, plus a northern route through the Central Valley to Monterey. He also travelled from Cabo San Lucas to San Francisco and from San Francisco to Salt Lake City, Utah and finally back to Ft. Wallace Kansas and back to the East.
Nice detail, including topography.