Large 8vo. xxii, [1], 500 pp., 28 (of 30) lithographed plates and maps, many folding, most hand-coloured or with partial colouring, folding table at end, modern buckram, lacking 2 of the 3 folding maps in pocket at end, only Map of River Tigris is present, scattered foxing, otherwise copy in good condition, compiled and edited by R. Hughes Thomas, new Series, Bombay Education Society’s Press, first edition, 1857.

Synopsis

RARE WORK. James Felix Jones first served as a midshipman on the survey ship “Palinurus” commanded by Captain Stafford Bettesworth Haines (1802-1860), who is best known for securing Aden on behalf of the East India Company. Later, he was employed in the survey of Ceylon and the Gulf of Mannar, under Lieutenant Powell, and in 1840-41 joined Lieutenant C. D. Campbell and then Captain Lynch in surveying the Euphrates route to the Mediterranean. Jones succeeded Lynch in 1843 and continued this work for several years and was also involved with Major Henry Rawlinson in gathering information on the Persian/Ottoman border in 1844. Promoted Commander, 13 September 1847, he conducted important archaeological surveys of parts of Mesopotamia, including the course of the ancient Nahrwan Canal (1848), the course of the Tigris and what he believed to be the site of Opis (1850), the Assyrian heartland (1852) and the Baghdad area (1853). Named political agent at Baghdad and consul-general in Turkish Arabia (1854), Jones later became political agent in the Persian Gulf (1855) when he initiated excavations at the site of Liyan on the Bushehr peninsula, but these were abandoned following the outbreak of war. Ill health compelled him to later return to England. His later career was spent carrying out geographical work for the India Office, and in 1875 he completed a beautifully drawn map, in four sheets, of western Asia, including the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates; it remains in manuscript in the India Office collections. Jones served on the Royal Geographical Society council, and was a valued contributor to the ‘Geographical Magazine’ and a member of the Geographical Club. He died on 3 September 1878, and the Geographical Magazine obituary called him ‘one of the greatest ornaments of the old Indian navy’ (Geographical Magazine, 1878). This volume contains his most important contributions.
The selections comprise: [1] A steam-trip to the north of Baghdad; [2] Journey for the purpose of determining the tract of the ancient Nahrwan canal; [3] Journey to the frontier of Turkey and Persia, through a part of Kurdistan; [4] Researches in the vicinity of the medial wall of Xenophon; [5] Memoir of the Province of Baghdad; [6] Notes on the topography of Nineveh… and on the general geography of the country between the Tigris and the upper Zab.
‘The most important of [Jones’s]… numerous memoirs are included in Selections from the Records of the Bombay Government (1857). Jones made an important contribution to the development of safe communications between Britain and India – the basis on which the empire developed’ (ODNB).
Bibliographical reference: Wilson p.111.