On the Coasts of Cathay and Cipango Forty Years Ago.
Blakeney, William.
Elliot Stock, ( 1902), London
xx, 354 pp. 19 maps (18 folding); 72 plates (1 colored).
Price: $750
A Record of Surveying Service in the China, Yellow and Japan Seas and on the Seaboard of Korea and Manchuria. Lack of knowledge of the Gulf of Tartary and the Sea of Okhotsk allowed the Russians to escape the British Fleet in 1855. This led to a surveying expedition in 1856 – 1862. Blakeney was one of the surveying officers, and this is an account of his adventures, which included the western action against China during the Second Opium War in 1857. Blakeney includes a folding “Plan of the Attack on Canton” as well as several other maps and plates descriptive of these actions. Scarce. Worldcat shows 8 libraries holding copies, only one of which is in the US. Bound in publisher’s illustrated yellow cloth. Slight lean to spine else a very good copy in decorated cloth.