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Collectible Guidebooks to Geology Along Major Western Railroads
A few years before World War I, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) started a project to describe the geology that passengers saw as they rode along the major rail routes of the great American West. Unlike the tree-covered East, the geology of the western United States was exposed and open like a book for everyone to see.
The Survey published its first four bulletins in 1915, but the fifth was delayed until after the war. These books were guidebooks to four dramatic crossings of the Rocky Mountains and the scenic line along the entire west coast. The sixth and final bulletin followed eleven years later and covered the route across the southern United States.
These historic bulletins are difficult to find in any condition and are very expensive collectibles when found with intact covers. (The USGS never put good covers on any of its bulletins.)
Thankfully, the government scanned all six bulletins and made them publicly available online at the National Park Service site.
The USGS wrote these bulletins to entertain passengers riding the mainlines and branches of western railroads. The documents were intended for complete novices and they were curiously well-written. As a geologist myself, I can testify that authors were really quite thorough.
Rail buffs will find these books extremely interesting because they will never again have the chance to see this territory from the windows of trains. In fact, they will be hard-pressed to see much of this scenery from autos. Be warned, however, that these bulletins are primarily guidebooks to geology along rail routes. They are not guidebooks to railroads or railroading.
I strongly recommend buying the Cox Catalog 3rd Edition from your favorite
SCRIPOPHILY DEALER.
If they do not carry, or are out of stock, you may buy directly from me. Simply click the buy button below.
$49.95+post
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