GREGORY, John Walter.

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Geology of Mesopotamia and Its Borderlands. First edition, "for official use only", of this scarce geological study, the first survey of its kind for Mesopotamia. Compiled by the veteran geologist and explorer John Walter Gregory FRGS (1864-1932), it describes the history of the region's mineral and oil wealth and recommends politically strategic avenues of exploration and exploitation.In Gregory's estimation, "the most promising oil localities in Mesopotamia are those in the long belt extending along the foot of the Zagros arc from Mosul to the Persian Gulf. The localities that either yield oil or give indications they may yield it may be arranged into three groups: (1) the scattered localities around the shores of the Persian Gulf; (2) the Ahwaz district; and (3) the area extending south-eastward from Mosul to Kend-i-Shirin and Mandali" (p. 73). His analysis is supported by Admiralty War Staff maps, one of which plots the belt of recorded oil springs.This edition is unrecorded in commerce. We have traced one example in sales records of the second edition, published by His Majesty's Stationery Office following the end of the war.Provenance: Captain Frederick L. Bassett (1894-1961), chief chemist to the Government of Iraq and a member of the Royal Central Asian Society, with his 1927 Baghdad ink ownership stamp on the front free endpaper and title page. During the First World War, Bassett served in the Royal Engineers and then the Royal West Kent Regiment in Mesopotamia. Late

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