THE ALBERT NYANZA, GREAT BASIN OF THE NILE and explorations of the Nile sources by BAKER, Samuel White - 1866

London / Philadelphia: Macmillan / Lippincott. 1866. First US Edition. Hardcover. Original brown pictorial pebble grain cloth stamped in gilt, bordered in blind, brown endpapers. pp [2], (v)-xxvi, 516 + photogravure frontispiece portrait with tissue guard + title leaf on slightly thicker paper + 1 colour plate + 13 b&w plates (12 called for) + 1 colour map + 1 folding colour map. 20 vignette text illustrations. Erratum slip tipped in at rear. Complete, including the plate at p 464 "Skirmish with the natives" not called for in the list of illustrations. Spine lightly sunned with modest wear at ends, soft vertical crease; front inner hinge cracked but firm; rubber stamped Galt, Ontario, owner name in corner of title leaf; 5 inch tear to folding map repaired on the blank side, the map with small creases and a slight misfold; book slightly leaned; in all a VG clean, tight and unworn copy, attractive. Made from UK sheets with small Lippincott spine imprint ("J.B.L. & Co."). The 1866 UK first was in a two volume format. "The discovery of the Albert Nyanza was the most remarkable feat accomplished in Baker's adventurous career; the work of Speke and Grant was thus completed, and the source of the Nile freed from mystery. Baker's name will ever be associated with the solution of the problem of the Nile source. The fact also that the whole expedition had been independently devised and the charges thereof defrayed by the traveller added not a little to the honor of his achievement. [His account] immediately became popular, and many editions have been issued" (DNB). 1.5 kg parcel; Octavo .