GILPIN, William (1813-1894). Notes on Colorado; and its inscription in the physical geography of the North American Continent. [London: Witherby, after 26 Sept. 1870]. Small 8vo (176 x 120 mm.). 52 pp. (small crease to lower corner of front wrapper, else fine.) Original printed wrappers; buckram folding case. First edition, PRESENTATION COPY, inscribed by the author on wrapper title to Senator William A. Buckingham. In this address delivered by Gilpin, at the time Governor of the territory of Colorado, to the British Association of Science in Liverpool on 26 September 1870, he sets forth anew a messianic view of the American West, and specifically the Colorado territory, as the site of the climactic realization of a manifest destiny of the white race, previously developed in his full-length work The Central Gold Region (Philadelphia 1860). From wealthy Pennsylvania Quaker stock, well-educated but restless, Gilpin successively embraced the careers of a soldier, a lawyer and a newspaper reporter before joining Frémont's westward expedition in 1843. His courage in the Mexican War and participation in 1848-48 in incursions against the Indians of the Rockies, as well as his visionary convictions, led him eventually to politics, and in 1861 he was appointed first territorial governor of Colorado, a charge which he filled for just under a year. The second half of his life was rendered extremely comfortable by his astute speculation on enormous land grants in the Southwest. In purple prose Gilpin here displays a supreme lack of scientific objectivity, praising the forces of geology and climate that made of Colorado the divinely appointed venue for a renewed world civilization and regenerated human race. While the reactions of his British audience must have ranged from enthralled to hilarious, Gilpin's address clearly evoked a response: a second edition, with identical collation, was issued by the same printers in 1871. Gilpin's presentation of his pamphlet to William Alfred Buckingham (1804-1875), Senator and former Governor of Connecticut, is most appropriate: having led his state with great distinction during the Civil War, Buckingham was during this period the conscientious and hardworking chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian affairs, in which capacity he would have been interested in Gilpin's eccentric views. This is a fine copy, with an interesting association, of a rare and influential pamphlet. Howes G194; Graff 1557 (second edition).