612. TYSON, James L]. Diary of a Physician in California; Being the Results of Actual Experience, Including Notes of the Journey by Land and Water, and Observations on the Climate, Soil, Resources of the Country.... New York & Philadelphia: Appleton, 1850. [1-3] 4-92, [4, ads] pp. 8vo, later beige cloth Old ink note (probably accession number) on title and four red ink stamps of the Mercantile Library of New York (one of the stamps is on the title). Other than a bit of chipping to the blank margins of a few leaves, condition very good.

     First edition. Cowan II, p. 648: “This work has a greater originality than the majority of similar narratives written by the adventurers of that time.” Hill II #1735: “Dr. Tyson was among the earliest to attempt any kind of hospital service at the diggings. The account is especially noteworthy in its record of the Oregonians, who were among the earliest to arrive at the California gold-fields.” Howes T451. Howell 50, California 235. Jones, Adventures in Americana 260: “Accurate observations of a trained eye. Dr. Tyson sailed from Baltimore January 16, 1849, for the Isthmus, arriving at San Francisco on May 18. He established a tent-hospital at a gold ‘diggings.’” Kurutz, The California Gold Rush 655a. Streeter Sale 2656: “One of the best contemporary accounts in print of travels to the northern mines of California and of life there in the summer of 1849.... His thumbnail sketches of New York on the Pacific, ‘without a house or tent visible,’ of Sacramento, ‘a few stores and houses,’ of the Johnson Ranch and Vernon and other places, are distinctly worthwhile.—TWS.” Vail, Gold Fever, p. 25. Wheat, Books of the California Gold Rush 211. ($150-300)