"God's Treasure House in Scotland;"
A History of Times, Mines and Lands in the Southern Highlands.
Rev. J. Moir Porteous
London: Simpkin, Marshall, & co.
Edinburgh & Glasgow: John Menzies & Co.
1876
First Edition
Maroon stipple-cloth gilt, black embossed knotwork and multiple keyline border, same pattern blind-embossed to rear board. Cream yellow coated endpapers, with some cracking in hinge gutters evident, the binding relaxed, with sewing to signatures and hinges sound. Hand-coloured frontis map in good order, the work a little crude as typical of the contemporary colourist workers. Moderate foxing freckles and fingermarks to prelim pages, text generally clean throughout, with some fore-edge freckling not extending to the page area. B&W line engravings on a few pages in good order as called for, and chapter-heading engraved emblems add a nice touch. Pages have the occasionmal corner-fold.
Of the outer binding, the spine-ends are frayed with a few mm loss and splitting starting to hinges at ends, and with worn spots in 3 places, though not threatening to worsen. Gilt dulled, clearly readable with attractive decorations at spine ends. Minor splash-marks to boards, Fore-corners rounded with some wear. Overall a sound and servicable copy with Maroon-cloth variant of the binding which have been noted in green and blue also, there being no edition precendence known between these variations as copies have been found to be identical save for cloth colour.
This book is exceedingly scarce in first edition and indeed no later printings were issued by the original publisher. It is a fascinating account of the history of Scotland's richest mineral and mining region where gold was produced for the Scottish regalia hundreds of years ago and where gold may still be panned from many streams in good amounts to this day.