"The chief purpose of this book is to show, in one continuous account and with the aid of critical lists of maps and of place names, the evolution of cartography of the northwest coast of America to the year 1800 - from the fanciful beginnings in imaginary geography to the painstaking explorations of the Vancouver expedition. The work has been done with great care, and the arrangement is planned to give good returns in enjoyment and usefulness; The first volume contains the general account - an introduction, thirty-nine brief chapters, a conclusion, and an index - in all, 270 pages; the second volume contains the critical and descriptive list of more than nine hundred maps, an index to it, a list of the place names still in use, a list of those now obsolete, and a bibliography - in all, 260 pages. The first volume is illustrated, moreover, with pictures of forty of the most important maps, and has a modern map of the entire coast from the Aleutian Islands to the Isthmus of Panama, showing clearly the modern place names."