Correlations of the Wind River Range drawings of 1842 Expedition cartographer Charles Preuss
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August 13, 1842
View from the Mule Camp near Lost
Lake at the head of Frémont Canyon. There is
a grassy meadow just south of Lost Lake at
N43°
04' 29", W109° 40' 38". The 3D images are rendered from 7.5 minute USGS
DEM (digital elevation model) files using MacDEM
and POV-Ray. Why does the right half of the Island Lake
drawing look so craggy and spirey? The engraved plates of the report were made from
sketches and drawings that Charles Preuss made in
the field--on the move. He would have assembled the
drawings hours or days later from a series of
sketches. Interesting purchase vouchers are for a
sketching device called a camera
obscura--also called camera lucida.
A simple optical device, it has been used as a
artist's sketching aid from the time of
Vermeer. If Charles Preuss used the camera obscura
as a sketching aid, he would have had to make many
views, as the camera would not take in the entire
horizontal view of these panoramic images. It is
possible that the horizontals on the right side of
the Island Lake drawing were omitted in tracing the
preliminary sketch on the ground glass of the
camera, and Preuss's memory failed to enter them
later when he worked on completing the drawings for
the engraver. The scale and perspective of
different parts of the finished drawing may not
quite agree for the same reason. I have filled in the copy of the scene in the
lower panel above as might have been intended.. Voucher No. 4, 27 Feb. 1839 $18.00 Jackson, Donald, and
Mary Lee Spence, The Expeditions of
John Charles Frémont:
Vol. I, Travels from 1838 to 1844
University of Illinois Press, 1970,
p.70. Voucher No. 19, 1 May 1842 $0.75 $8.00 Jackson, Donald, and
Mary Lee Spence, The Expeditions of
John Charles Frémont:
Vol. I, Travels from 1838 to 1844
University of Illinois Press, 1970,
p.140. Voucher No. 12, 28 April 1842 $2.50 Jackson, Donald, and
Mary Lee Spence, The Expeditions of
John Charles Frémont:
Vol. I, Travels from 1838 to 1844
University of Illinois Press, 1970,
p.138.
Correlations of the Wind
River Range drawings
of 1842 Expedition
cartographer Charles
Preuss
See this view and the one below
combined.
August
13, 1842
View from the approach of Island Lake.
The base camp was atop the waterfall on the far
side of the lake at about N43°
04' 30", W109° 38' 11"--Preuss said "two
miles distant as the crow flies" from the
Mule Camp.
U.S. to E & G. W. Blunt
1 camera lucida
Example of type only
Not Frémont's camera
U.S. to William King, Jr.
Mirror for camera obscura
portable box to form the above
U.S. to William Würdmann
additions to a camera lucida
Capt. Charles Wilkes, The United States
Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842.
Columbia River.
"Mr.
Drayton took a camera lucida drawing of one of the
largest trees, which the opposite plate is engraved
from. It conveys a good idea of the thick growth of
the trees, and is quite characteristic of this
forest. The soil on which this timber grows is rich
and fertile, but the obstacles to the agriculturist
are almost insuperable. The largest tree of the
sketch was thirty-nine feet six inches in
circumference, eight feet above the ground, and had
a bark eleven inches thick. The height could not be
ascertained, but it was thought to be upwards of
two hundred and fifty feet, and the tree was
perfectly straight."
Did Charles Preuss make use of the camera
obscura on Frémont's 2nd Expedition?
The story of the climb of Frémont Peak in
1842
©1999, 2007
Bob
Graham
