408, [4] pp. With 14 duotone lithographed plates (including frontispiece & added pictorial title, which are included in the pagination); folding lithographed map. 6¾x4¼, orignal cloth, spine decorated and lettered in gilt. First Edition.

Father De Smet, a Jesuit Missionary from Belgium, ventured across the Missouri in 1840 with a party of fur traders to assess the prospects of a mission to the Flathead Indians. He returned the following year to found St. Mary's Mission in the Bitterroot Valley, and moved on to Oregon the next spring. Wagner-Camp notes that the present work contains "Father Smet's descriptions of his travels through and about the central Columbia River plateau as well as a trip up that river to its source, during which he continued on the the Athabaska River, the country of the Assiniboines, and arrived at Fort Augusta about January 1, 1846. He returned to Fort Vancouver by way of Fort Colville. In July he departed for the Upper Mission and in August stopped at St. Mary's on his way down the Missouri River. He arrived at Westport on October 28." The captivating lithographed plates are from drawings by Father Nicolas Point, S.J. Field 1424; Graff 3829; Howes D286; Sabin 82268; Smith 9556; Streeter 2099; Wagner-Camp 141:1; Wheat Transmississippi 535.