The History Of Kamtschatka, And The Kurilski Islands, With The Countries Adjacent; Illustrated With Maps And Cuts. Published At Petersbourg In The Russian Language, By Order Of Her Imperial Majesty And Translated Into English By James Grieve, M.D. Krasheninnikov, Stepan Petrovich; James Grieve, Translator.

4to, pp. [8], vii, [1 (blank)], [9]-280, [8 (index)]; with 2 folding maps and 5 engraved plates (2 folding); maps creased with some tears and small areas of loss (repaired), closed tear to pp. 183-184 (with repair slightly obscuring text to p. 183), occasional light stains; in twentieth-century half calf, marbled boards, gilt fillets to spine, two gilt-lettered red morocco labels; upper joint split but firm, small tear to upper cover; twentieth-century ownership inscription to front free endpaper.First edition of this English abridgement of Stepan Krasheninnikov's account of the Kamchatka Peninsula and Kuril Islands, 'the first scientific account of those regions' (Hill), illustrated with two maps by Thomas Jefferys and five engraved plates.Having studied medicine at Edinburgh, James Grieve (1703–1763) practiced as a physician in St Petersburg and then Moscow. He 'is best remembered for translatingThe History of Kamtschatka, and the Kurilski Islands, published posthumously in 1764 byThomas Jefferys, the royal geographer, from the 1755 work bySergey Krasheninnikov. The latter participated in the Russian Academy of Sciences' secondKamchatkaexpedition (1733–43), underBering, which attempted to prove the feasibility of a north-east passage between Asia and America. Krasheninnikov'sbook is a classic scientific study of all aspects of Kamchatka's vulcanology, geography, natural history, and ethnography' (ODNB). The inclusion of Georg Wilhelm Steller's 'observations on America, made during his travels with Bering's second voyage, are an important part of this work, and constitute one of the earliest accounts of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands' (Hill).The plates illustrate the harbours of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and Okhotsk, Kizimen volcano, indigenous winter and summer huts, and a local 'method of producing fire'.ESTC T93828; Hill 948; Sabin 38301.