Howard Stansbury (1806 63) trained as a civil engineer and became a major in the United States Army Corps of Topographical Engineers. He oversaw a number of construction projects and later had geographical features and plant and animal species named after him. In 1849 51, Stansbury led an expedition to the Great Salt Lake Valley in Utah to carry out a scientific survey, as well as to scout possible locations for a transcontinental railroad and to evaluate emigration trails. This book, first published in 1852, is Stansbury's account of that expedition, and of his party's encounters with...