JENNEY, Walter P. / NEWTON, Henry. Topographical and geological atlas of the Black Hills of Dakota. Julius Bien, Lith. New York, 1879. 820 x 570 mm. Lithographié en couleurs. Large folio atlas. Lithographic title, bird’s-eye view and 2 folding color lithographed maps. Large tear (15 cm) into the view. Imposing and very rare atlas of the first detailed surveys of the Black Hills. Without the accompanying report. The atlas is illustrated with a title page, a bird’s-eye view, and two lithographed maps of the Black Hills. The Map of the Black Hills of Dakota shows relief both by hachuring and by contour lines (though the interval is not specified) and pays close attention to the complex network of rivers and streams forming the Cheyenne watershed. A striking number of towns, settlements, and mining camps appear, having sprung up in only a few years, while the western boundary of the Sioux Reservation is marked at 103° west longitude. The Geological Map of the Black Hills of Dakota covers the same area, without hachuring, but distinguishes eleven different geological formations indicated by printed colors. After the discovery of gold in the Black Hills by miners accompanying Custer’s 1874 expedition, the federal government expropriated the Sioux Lakota from the region, in violation of the Treaty of Fort Laramie. As settlers and prospectors streamed in, in May 1875 the Department of the Interior sent a large scientific expedition led by Walter P. Jenney, assisted by Henry Newton. Their Report on the Geology and Resources of the Black Hills of Dakota finally appeared in 1880, after long delays, preceded in 1879 by the Atlas offered here (both Jenney and Newton were already dead by that time, though Newton lived long enough to be listed as first author). The historian Wheat attributes this delay in publication to infighting within the scientific community: “When presented to Congress its publication would have been immediately authorized except for a selfish and heartless opposition it encountered, born of the fear that it would betray the inaccuracy of previously published descriptions of the geology of the region [a scarcely veiled allusion to F. V. Hayden]. This opposition cost Mr. Newton his life: when Congress deferred action on this report until another session, he determined to employ part of the interval in revisiting the Black Hills, repeating some of his observations and recording the results of the rapidly developing mining industry. While engaged in this work, he contracted typhoid fever and died at Deadwood, August 5, 1877.” (Wheat, V:2, pp. 329-30, quoting Newton J.S. Newberry in the Preface to the Report).