Written in a neat hand to recto only of 294pp, the manuscript includes a Woodbury-type portrait of the author, James E. Spencer, as well as 26 full-page diagrams like the one reproduced right, and a 47pp dictionary of pictograms with up to eight coloured illustrations to the margins of each page.
Based on studies of manuscripts, rock writings and earlier reports (including those of Lord Kingsborough and others), the work appears never to have been published, but while they have been unable to show any direct connection, Bonhams note that there was a James E. Spencer who worked for the Nevada Agency and who in 1880 produced an 'Annual Report on Indian Affairs for the Secretary of the Interior'.
The manuscript itself is dated Manchester, 1869, though this could, of course, be the Manchester in New Hampshire.
