Burr, G. D. [George Dominicus]. Instructions in Practical Surveying

Burr, G. D. [George Dominicus]. Instructions in Practical Surveying, Topographical Plan Drawing, and Sketching Ground Without Instruments. With Plates and Woodcuts. Second Edition. London: John Murray, 1847. Octavo (183 x 115 mm). Contemporary prize binding of green morocco, spine gilt in compartments, title, single-line rules, elaborate crests to boards, acorn and oak leaf roll to turn-ins, and all edges gilt, marbled endpapers. 5 folding plates on tissue, diagrams within the text. Prize and ownership bookplates to the front endpapers. Binding lightly rubbed with a few mild scuffs and some light wear at the extremities, a little faint spotting to the folding plates. Very good condition. Second edition with additions, first published in 1839. An attractively bound prize copy awarded by the Royal Military College at Sandhurst to Henry George White for "attention to, and progress in, military drawing." With White's later bookplate giving his rank as Major General.

Author George Dominicus Burr (d. 1855) was for forty years an esteemed professor of military surveying at the Royal Military College, and it is presumably he himself who presented this prize volume. The contents cover practical surveying and military drawing for students with no prior knowledge of the art. The recipient, Major General Henry George White (1835-1906), "had a distinguished career in the British Army serving at the Crimean War (1854-56), in the Indian Mutiny (1858-59), in Cyprus (1878-79), and Bechuanaland in South Africa in the 1880s" (Irish National Inventory of Architectural Heritage). [Ref: 345] £350