3-066-062 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Picturesque America:" Pilot Knob, Northern California, 1881. 'One of the most attractive of the illustrated works of topography published in a series of monthly parts by Messrs. Cassell, Petter, Galpin, and Co., is devoted to the grand natural scenery of the Western Continent. The first four parts...contain very fine steel plates and wood engravings, from drawings by Mr. H. Fenn, Mr. R. Swain Gifford, and Mr. Granville Perkins...We have selected...[a view of] a noted peak in Northern California..."one sees, rising in the blue air, the singular form of Pilot Knob, an elevation of the Siskiyou mountains, which, becoming a landmark of emigrants journeying to Oregon, has obtained this name. It is a great mass of black volcanic substance, which rises perpendicularly from the mountain crest. The Siskiyou range has here an elevation of 2500 ft., and the Knob is about 500 ft. higher"...The Illustration was drawn by Mr. B. Swain Gifford, and engraved by Mr. Henry Linton. We understand that the steel plates and wood-engravings have cost, for drawing and engraving alone, more than £20,000. The copyright for Great Britain having been purchased by Messrs. Cassell, the whole work is to be issued in forty-eight monthly parts, at half a crown'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.