Sketch of Plan and Section of a Breakwater — San Buenaventura, Cal. (1870)
An original 19th-century U.S. Army Corps of Engineers survey sheet for a proposed breakwater at San Buenaventura, California — the coastal town now known simply as Ventura.
The sheet is dated 1870 and drawn to a scale of 1:10,000, with a statute-mile bar.
The upper portion is a plan of the shoreline: the laid-out streets and blocks of the young town, the San Buenaventura River, surrounding hills and ranch land, and an extensive field of depth soundings offshore, with the three-fathom and six-fathom curves picked out and a magnetic-meridian compass at lower left.
The lower portion is a "Vertical Cross Section on 1-2" of the proposed breakwater (scale: one inch to twenty feet), keyed to the plan and annotated with highest water of spring tides, mean high water, low water, and lowest water of spring tides.
At upper left the sheet is inscribed "Forwarded to the Chief of Engineers with letter of Dec. 11, 1878," and signed C. Seaforth Stewart, with a second countersignature below.
Charles Seaforth Stewart (1823-1904) was a career officer of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who served on the board of engineers for Pacific Coast fortifications from 1870 to 1886 (later a colonel, and a brigadier general on the retired list).
Printed by photolithography — the imprint of the American Photo-Lithographic Co., New York (Osborne's process) appears at the foot of the sheet.
A scarce piece of early Ventura and California harbor-engineering history, of interest to collectors of California maps, maritime/harbor material, and Corps of Engineers documents.
Condition: Folded as originally issued, with the resulting grid of fold lines; light overall toning. Minor wear and a few short splits at some fold intersections. The blank verso carries a faint old pencil notation. Light blue and tan/pink tinting is present in the water and along the shoreline. Please review the photos, which form part of the description. Approx. sheet size 20.3" x 17.7".