This magnificent map is one of the rarest and most sought after early Land Survey maps of <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/California" title="California">California</a>.  Dates to 1854. 
<ul><li>Formally titled: Map of the Public Surveys in California to accompany the Report of the Surveyor General 1854.  Prepared by P.S. Duval &amp; Company Steam Lithograph Press of Philadelphia, PA.</li>
<li>Includes a wealth of detail indicating the extant of what we knew about Californian geography at the time.  Notes the massive <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulare_Lake" class="extiw" title="en:Tulare Lake">Tulare Lake</a>, once the largest freshwater lake in North America, practically a sea, which has since been drained for irrigation purposes.</li></ul>
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<a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://www.geographicus.com/mm5/cartographers/landoffice.txt">http://www.geographicus.com/mm5/cartographers/landoffice.txt</a></div>
1854<div style="display: none;">date QS:P571,+1854-00-00T00:00:00Z/9</div>
This file was provided to Wikimedia Commons by <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.geographicus.com/">Geographicus Rare Antique Maps</a>, a specialist dealer in rare maps and other cartography of the 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, as part of a <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Geographicus" title="Commons:Geographicus">cooperation project</a>.