Plans and Photographs of Stonehenge, and of Turusachan in the Island of Lewis; with Notes relating to the Druids and Sketches of Cromlechs in Ireland.

[Southampton: Ordnance Survey], 1867, 8 zincographed plates and plans, 8 mounted albumen prints of Stonehenge, Folio,(18.5 x 23.5 cm), 2 further mounted albumen prints from drawings by Henry James, one of these loose, minor dust-soiling, original cloth gilt, rebacked.

In his preface, Henry James states that “this short account of Stonehenge and Turusachan, with the few well-known passages from ancient authors relating to the Druids, and to the progress made in the mechanical arts in Gaul and Britain, at, and for some time before the Roman conquest, is circulated for the information of the Officers of the Ordnance Survey, in the hope that it may stimulate them to make Plans and Sketches, and to give Descriptive Remarks of such Objects of Antiquity as they may meet with during the progress of the Survey of the Kingdom” (Southampton, 29th May 1867).

Col. Sir Henry James was the Director General of the Ordnance Survey. In 1855 he created a photographic department for the Ordinance Survey as a means of reducing the scale of maps. He claimed to have invented photozincography, a photographic method for the reproduction of images, manuscript text, and outline engravings on printing plates. It is likely that it was invented by the department he created.

This copy of a scarce and important photographic incunable differs slightly from most copies. The unnumbered illustration titled ‘Turusachan, Callernish, or, the place of pilgrimage on the bleak headland in the Isle of Lewis’ is usually reproduced as a zincograph, as the following illustrations numbered 12 to 15 at the end of the volume. However, the illustration here is a mounted albumen print of the same illustration. The additional mounted albumen print found loosely inserted bears the printed title ‘Stonehenge restored: Druidical sacrifice’.

Gernsheim, 359.