JF Ptak Science Books // Blog Bookstore

Rare Work on California Oil and Gas Fields--Carbon Copy

No Copies in WorldCat

HUDSON, George H. Geological Summary and Report of California Oil and Gas Fields, with Addenda.

Compiled by Bureau of Geological Statistics (San Francisco). Copyrighted by J. Miller and George H. Hudson (Geologist and Petroleum Engineer). Carbon copy, with homemade paper wrappers. 11”x 8.5”, 2 (unusual) birds-eye views, ii, 27pp, 4pp appendix. Bound with brass brad fasteners. $1500.00

Carbon copy on onion-skin-like paper—I don't think this is the first impression (I mean the original) but an early, Provenance: Library of Congress, with their 10mm “LC” perforated stamp on the title page and rubber stamp surplus on the front wrapper. perhaps first generation, copy, as you can still feel the indentations from the typewriter-struck paper. Laid in are the LC card catalog cards.

Outstanding Description of a Significant Industrial/Production Push in the U.S. War Effort, 1943

Kaiser Fontana Steelworks In-House History and Overview (1943).

(Kaiser Fontana Steelworks) Description of Iron and Steel Plant, Fontana California. (On the front cover of the work, “General Description/Iron and Steel Plant/Fontana, California”.) 11”x 8.5”. 42 leaves (printed on Kaiser paper), plus 4 glossy photographs, plus 18 folding plates (some wonderfully in color). Mimeographed. Rare.  $1500

This seems to be a fabulous illustrated overview produced in-house showing the strengths of the just-opened Kaiser Tontana plant, printed in January 1943.

“Kaiser Steel (later Kaiser Ventures and CIL&D), headquartered in Fontana, California, was founded by Henry J. Kaiser to provide steel plate for the Pacific Coast shipbuilding industry, which expanded during World War II, then shrank, then expanded again during the Korean War. California Shipbuilding Corporation on Terminal Island, California, was one of these shipyards which built hundreds of Liberty ships and Victory ships in World War II, and was also a project of Henry Kaiser. Kaiser Steel was noted for making the most of its costly steelmaking inputs, and it captured, along with the U.S. Steel plant in Utah, much of the Pacific Coast steel market by the late 1950s. Its assets included steelmaking plants in Napa, California (that it acquired from Basalt Rock Company in 1955)  and Fontana, California (now operated by California Steel Industries), and a former open-pit iron ore mine at Eagle Mountain, California. Steel manufactured was also used in Kaiser Motors.”