Nicolas Jansz Visscher (1618-1679), an accomplished Dutch cartographer, published an important map of the Dutch lands in North America. This is a copy of that map. The text at bottom center reads “A CORRECT COPY & IMITATION OF THE ORIGINAL DUTCH MAP in the possession of S. CONVERSE, PUBLISHER, NEW YORK. Engraved by THOS STARLING, WILMINGTON SQUARE, LONDON, 1833.” As in the Visscher original (which was actually published in 1655), an inset below the title depicts “NIEUW AMSTERDAM / op t’Eylant Manhattans.”
This map extends from 37° to 46°10' north latitude and from 297° to 312° longitude measured from west to east.
Sherman Converse, the one-time owner of the Visscher map, was a Yale graduate who was friendly with Noah Webster and published Webster's first dictionary. Converse moved from New York to Quebec in 1838, returned to the United States around 1844, and died in Boston.
Ref: Wilberforce Eames, “The First Three Engraved Views of New York,” New York Times (Feb. 16, 1901), p. BR 13.
While suggestions of a canal between Philadelphia and Baltimore originated in the 17th century, and efforts to dig this canal date from shortly after the Revolution, it was the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal that made the waterway a reality. Henry Schenck Tanner (1786-1858), an important early American cartographer, produced this map showing the proposed route of the canal for the Fifth General Report of the President and Directors of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal Company (Philadelphia, 1824). The text at bottom center reads “Longitude East from Washington.” The signature at bottom right reads “Drawn & Engrav’d by H. S. Tanner.”
Ref: Walter W. Ristow, American Maps and Mapmakers: Commercial Cartography in the Nineteenth Century (Detroit, 1985), pp. 191-206.
James Walker, “Henry S. Tanner and Cartographic Expression of American Expansion in the 1820s,” Oregon Historical Quarterly 111 (2010): 444-461.
This mezzotint was issued in 1722, a year after Edmond Halley (1656-1742) was named Astronomer Royal. The signatures at bottom read “T. Murray pinx. 1712” and “John Faber Fecit 1722” and “Sold by John Bowles at the Black Horse in Cornhill.” The text identifies Halley as “Astronomus Regius et Geometriæ Professor Savilianus.”
This half-length portrait print is based on a full-length oil portrait done in 1712 by Thomas Murray, a painter from Scotland who enjoyed prominence and prosperity in England. Murray depicted Halley as the Savilian Professor of Geometry at the University of Oxford, wearing a long wig, clerical bands (a symbol of ecclesiastical or academic profession) around his neck, and a fur vest. The mezzotint was done by John Faber Jr., an artist from The Hague who spent his working life in London. It was sold by John Bowles, a printmaker and dealer in London.
Ref: D. W. Hughes, “The Portraits of Edmond Halley,” Vistas in Astronomy 27 (1984): 55-62.
This half-length engraved portrait of Jean LeRond d’Alembert (1717-1783) shows this French mathematician and philosophe sitting with quill pen in one hand and dividers in the other. Papers, books, and other drawing instruments are strewn across the desk in front of him, and more books, a rolled chart, and a globe sit on the cabinet behind. The text at bottom reads: “Dessiné par M. R. Jollain, Peintre du Roi, et Gravé par B. L. Henriquez, Graveur de S. M. I. de / toutes les Russies, et de l’Academie Imperiale des Beaux Arts de St. Petersbourg.”
This image was published in Paris in 1777, along with similar portraits of Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Diderot, the other principal authors of the Encyclopédie. The prints were commissioned by Charles-Joseph Panckoucke, the Paris bookman who was then producing a Supplément to the Encyclopédie. They sold for three francs each. Nicholas-René Jollain was an artist in Paris. Benoît-Louis Henriquez was an engraver in Paris.
Ref: Thomas L. Hankins, Jean d’Alembert. Science and the Enlightenment (Oxford, 1970).
George B. Watts, “The Supplément and the Table Analytique et Rainsonée of the Encyclopédie,” The French Review 28 (1954): 4-19, on 16.
After Alabama became a state in 1819 and after the Indian Removal Act of 1830, white settlers and their African slaves arrived in the area in great numbers. This map was created under the auspices of the General Land Office, a federal agency that was formed in 1812. The agency took over functions begun under the Federal Land Ordinance of 1785.
This map shows Alabama divided into square townships 6 miles on each side (townships at the edges of the state tend to be smaller and irregular in shape). Some townships are designated A, B, C, D, or X. The scale seems to be 18 miles to the inch. The identified towns are Cahaba, Florence, Huntsville, Mardisville, Mobile, Montgomery, Sparta, St. Stephens, Tuscaloosa, and Wetumka. The Cherokee Cession is shown, as are the Choctaw Cession of 1830, the Chickasaw Cession of 1833, and the Creek Cession of 1832. One meridian runs through St. Stephens, a settlement along the Tombigbee River (here spelled Tombeckee) that served as the original capital of the Alabama Territory. Another meridian runs through Huntsville, the first incorporated town in the region. An east-west line at 31° north latitude divides Alabama from West Florida. Another east-west line divides the Northern and Southern surveyor’s districts.
The text at bottom reads “Exhibiting the situation of the Public Surveys, shewing what records of the same are on file in the General Land Office and the Surveyor General’s Office, the Townships, the field notes of which are yet to be transcribed for the General Land Office and recorded in this Office, also, what Townships the original field notes of which are not on file in either Office, having been destroyed by fire in December 1827, and which have to be retraced for the purpose of obtaining the Original Land Marks to be preserved on record in the General Land Office and This Office. Surveyor’s Office, Florence Alabama Jas H. Weakley Surveyor General of the Public Lands in Alabama.”
Ref: Jas. H. Weakley to James Whitcomb, Commissioner of the General Land Office, Nov. 16, 1840, in Public Documents Printed by Order of the Senate of the United States (Washington, D.C., 1841), vol. 3, pp. 134-135.
This image appeared as the frontispiece of vol. 14 of the Encyclopaedia Londinensis (1816). The “Chapman sculp.” signature in the lower left may refer to John Chapman (fl. 1787-1811), a London engraver. The text at bottom (cropped from our copy) read “London Published April 13, 1816, by G. Jones.”
A “Description of the Frontispiece Illustrating Mechanics” appears on p. [1] of the book. It reads: “Archimedes, the founder of theoretical mechanics, is represented in a contemplative attitude, in the midst of his pupils and of the instruments of the mechanical powers. In the foreground a youth is tracing on the sand a diagram expressing the famous discovery of Archimedes, the proportion of the sphere to the cylinder; to which another, leaning on a book, is attentive. On the right hand are shown the action of the screw and the wedge, and higher up, of the balance. From the ceiling is suspended a system of pulleys. On the left is a globe, the hydrostatical bellows, and the pump which bears the name of Archimedes’s screw; the action of the inclined plane is also shown in the left corner; and in the back ground, on the same side, is a youth working a crane.”
Ref: Richard Yeo, Encyclopaedic Visions: Scientific Dictionaries and Enlightenment Culture (Cambridge and New York, 20010
This map extends from Pueblo, Colorado, in the east to the conjunction of the Colorado and Flax Rivers in the west, and from north of Breckenridge, Colorado, to south of Albuquerque, New Mexico, or, from about 34°45' to about 39°20' north latitude, and from about 104°50' to about 112° longitude west of Greenwich. The scale is 12 miles to the inch. A text in the lower right corner pertains to the “CENTRAL GOLD REGIONS.” It also states “A delicate tint was ruled over the whole plate to give the effect of a plaster model of the country. Constructed and engraved by BARON F. W. VON EGLOFFSTEIN Topographer to the Surveys under the 35th and 38th parallels. Frémont’s, Beckwith’s, and Ives’ Expeditions.” The texts at bottom read “Lettering by John L. Hazzard” and “Ruling by Samuel Sartain” and “[GE]OGRAPHICAL INSTITUTE, BARON F. W. VON EGLOFFSTEIN, NO. 164 BROADWAY, N. YORK. 1864”
Baron Freidrich Wilhelm Von Egloffstein (1824-1885), the topographer who compiled this map, was a German immigrant who came to the United States in 1849. He went with John C. Frémont on a winter trek from St. Louis to the Great Basin (1853-1854), seeking a rail route to the west. He joined Edward G. Beckwith on a railroad reconnaissance from Salt Lake City to California (1854). And he travelled with Joseph C. Ives up the Colorado River and across the Southern Plateau (1857-1858), on an expedition organized by the Corps of Topographical Engineers. He had not gone on the 1859 expedition led by John N. Macomb-a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy and member of the Corps of Topographical Engineers-that aimed to locate a practicable route between Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the military outposts in the southern part of Utah. But he did have access to notes compiled by those who had.
This map incorporates several important and somewhat related technological innovations, all of which Egloffstein had used, to some extent, on his chart of the “AMAKARIMA GROUP WITH PART OF LOO-CHOO” (cat. PH*317505). In order to produce a landscape that appeared remarkably realistic, Egloffstein made topographical models of plaster, and photographed them while lit from one side. In order to reproduce these images, he used the technique known as heliographic etching. Following the lead of the French photographic pioneer, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, Egloffstein coated his steel photographic plates with a substance (such as bitumen of Judea) that hardened when exposed to light. After taking a picture, he washed away the still-soft parts of the substance, used an acid to eat away those parts of the plate that could now be seen, and printed the result. By inserting a fine mesh (or grid) between the model and the plate, he was able to print halftone images. Egloffstein was not the first to develop a photomechanical printing process-Paul Pretsch in England had organized a company for that purpose in 1854-but his contributions were important nonetheless.
Egloffstein was working on this map in 1860 and asking people in Washington about particular geographical details. He joined the Union army at the start of the Civil War, and was wounded in battle in 1862. He then established a Geographical Institute in New York. It was here that he completed the map, dated it 1864, and distributed some copies. In 1876 the map was published with the official Report of the Exploring Expedition from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to the Junction of the Grand and Green Rivers of the Great Colorado of the West.
Egloffstein included on this map information about several expeditions in addition to the above mentioned ones led by Frémont, Beckwith, Ives, and Macomb. These included a chain survey in eastern New Mexico conducted by J. C. Brown from 1825 to 1827; William W. Loring’s 1858 trek through the San Luis Valley in Colorado; Randolph B. Marcy’s 1858 trek from Utah to New Mexico; Oliver Shepherd’s trek through Arizona in 1859; John S. Simonson’s 1859 trek along the San Juan River; John G. Walker’s 1859 trek through Navajo country south of Four Corners; and Amiel W. Whipple’s 1853 trek to find a route for a transcontinental railroad.
The map is also a clear statement of American interest in and involvement with the area. Utah and New Mexico had become territories in 1850. Colorado became a territory in 1861, in the wake of the gold rush that brought prospectors and settlers to the area around Pike’s Peak. Arizona became a territory in in 1863, at a time when Southerners, who had hoped the area would be hospitable to slavery, had seceded from the Union. Some land in eastern New Mexico and Colorado had been laid out in square townships, 6 miles on a side, according to the procedures of the General Land Survey. The Mormon Settlement is shown in Utah—and, indeed, it was fear of further conflicts with the Mormons that had led the army to sponsor Macomb’s expedition.
Egloffstein also included the path taken by Silvestre Vélez de Escalante, a priest who in 1776 sought a trail from Santa Fe to the missions in California. Other Spanish names on the map include the Spanish Trail, the San Francisco Mountains, and the Sierra Abajo mountains.
Evidence of Native Americans on the map includes Mesa Verde; Moquis Pueblo (the Anglo term for Hopi) in the Painted Desert; Navajo Valley to the east of the Painted Desert; Navajo Mesa (now known as the Black Mesa) in northern Arizona; Ildefonso, Pojoaque, Zandia (aka Sandia), Zuni, and other pueblos in New Mexico; and the ruins at Chaco Canyon and elsewhere.
Evidence of military presence in the area (in addition to the paths of military surveys) includes Fort Union (in northern New Mexico), Fort Defiance (in eastern Arizona), and Fort Hill (in southwestern Colorado).
The map also shows the paths of rivers and the positions of mountains (some with elevations) and mountain passes. Geological features include the Painted Desert in Arizona, the Needles in Utah, the Leroux cold springs and the Pagosa hot springs, the Mines in the Animas River valley (site of a major gold rush in 1860), the Dolores mines of Colorado, and the Burning Coal Bed (now the Lava Beds National Monument) in northern Arizona.
Ref: Imre Josef Demhardt, “An approximation to a bird’s eye view, and is intelligible to every eye . . . Friedrich Wilhelm von Egloffstein, the Exploration of the American West, and Its First Relief Shaded Maps,” in E. Liebenberg and I. J. Demhardt, eds., History of Cartography. International Symposium of the ICA Commission, 2010 (Dordrecht, 2012), pp. 57-74.
David Hanson, “Baron Frederich Wilhelm von Egloffstein,” Printing History 15 (1993): 12-24.
Steven K. Madsden, Exploring Desert Stone: John N. McComb’s 1859 Expedition to the Canyonlands of Colorado (Logan, Utah, 2010).
Stevan Rowan, The Baron in the Grand Canyon: Friedrick Wilhelm von Egloffstein in the West (University of Missouri, 2012).
Volterra, an ancient town in the Tuscan region of Italy, has a productive salt spring known variously as the Moie or the Saline. This ink-and-wash drawing depicts the front and back of the house over that spring. The title reads “Piante per Levare L’Acqua dolce dalla Salata per le Moie di Volterra.” The partial signature at bottom left reads “Ciappevony.”
Ref: Fabrizio Borelli, Le Saline de Volterra nel Granducatio di Toscana (Florence, 2000).
Didier Boisseuil,Le Thermalisme en Toscane à la fin du Moyen Age (Rome, 2002).
Thomas Kitchin (1718-1784) was an English engraver and cartographer, many of whose maps were published in the London Magazine. This one appeared in the issue for November 1761. It extends from lat. 36°10' to 39°55' north, and from 75°40' to 82°25' west of London; and from 0° to 7° west of Philadelphia. The text at top reads “For the Lond: Ma;” It would have been of interest to readers following the course of the French and Indian Wars.
This ink-and-wash drawing shows several men and women producing salt from brine. Some are raking the salt drying in long pans, and others are carrying wood to stoke the fires below. The well-dressed man at right may be a government official responsible for collecting the salt tax known as the “gabelle di sale.”
On the back, a hand-written text reads “F. XIII.” “A. Pigne” could refer to Pinecone, a medieval town in Liguria, or something shaped like a cone. “B. Vergoni di ferro che reggono le Cabaie” could refer to refer to big rods of iron that support [whatever the plural noun is]. “C. Gabbei su[i] quoli sgrona il sale” could refer to the frames onto which the salt drips.
This map extends from 39°10'10" to 39°21'15" latitude and from 119°32'30" to 119°43' longitude west of Greenwich. The text at top reads “U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WEST OF THE 100TH MERIDIAN.” The texts at bottom read “EXPEDITIONS of 1876 & 1877, Under the Command of 1st Lieut. Geo. M. Wheeler, Corps of Engineers, U.S. Army” and “Lieut. Thos. W. Symons, and Dr. F. Kampf, Field Astronomy and Triangulation. Anton Karl, Topography, and “BY ORDER OF THE HON. THE SECRETARY OF WAR, UNDER THE DIRECTION OF BRIG. GEN. A. A. HUMPHREYS, CHIEF OF ENGINEERS, U.S. ARMY.”
The Comstock Lode of silver ore lies under the eastern slope of Mount Davidson, in the Virginia Range in Nevada. It was the first major silver lode found in the United States. After it was made public in 1859, prospectors rushed to the region. This map was made by the geological survey of the United States west of the 100th meridian authorized by Congress in 1872. Also known as the Wheeler Survey, it was led by George M. Wheeler (1842-1905), a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy and member of the Army Corps of Engineers.
Thomas William Symons (1849-1920) was a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy who, after joining the Corps of Engineers, surveyed and mapped the American Northwest. Dr. F. Kampf was a civilian astronomical assistant on the Wheeler Expedition. Anton Karl (b. 1854) was a Bavarian who, after coming to the United States in 1870, drew maps for the War Department, the General Land Office, the Geological Survey, and the Surveyor’s Office of the District of Columbia.
Ref: George M. Wheeler, “Annual Report upon the Geographical Surveys of the Territory of the United States West of the 100th Meridian,” in Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers for 1879 (Washington, D.C., 1879), opp. p. 189.
In 1702, living in London and serving as Master of the Mint, Isaac Newton sat for Godfrey Kneller, the most famous and probably the most expensive portrait painter in London. For this portrait he wore a red banyan and a flowing wig.
This is one of many engraved copies of that image. The text at the bottom reads “Sr ISAAC NEWTON” and “G. Kneller pinxt” and “Wm. Sharp sculpt” and “G. Kearsley, No 46 Fleet Street.” Newton here looks to his left (rather than to his right as in the Kneller portrait). A laurel branch appears at one side and an oil lamp at the other. Below are figures of a globe, a large lens, a refracting telescope, books, papers, geometrical diagrams, and a woman who probably represents Urania, the muse of astronomy.
William Sharp (1749-1824) was an engraver in London. George Kearsley (fl. 1758-1791) was a publisher of books and prints. He was also responsible for The Copper Plate Magazine, “a monthly treasure for admirers of the imitative arts.” Our engraving appeared in the 1778 edition of that work.
Ref: Patricia Fara, Newton. The Making of Genius (New York, 2003).
Milo Keynes, ed., The Iconography of Sir Isaac Newton to 1800 (Woodbridge, 2005), p. 56.
This map extends from 36°45' to 40°15' north latitude and from 75° to 82°30' west longitude from the meridian of Paris. It was probably based on Robert de Vaugondy’s 1755 copy of the Fry & Jefferson map, and published in Le Petit Atlas Maritime (Paris, 1764) issued by Jacques Nicolas Bellin (1703-1772), a productive cartographer in Paris. An inscription at the upper right reads “Tome I. No 35.”
“Ft Cumberland ou de la Compag d’Oyo” at the western side of this map would have interested those following the course of the French and Indian Wars. “Charles Town détruite” in southern Maryland refers to the small town that served as the seat of Prince George’s County from 1695 until 1732, when the seat was moved to Upper Marlboro (not shown on this map). London, near Annapolis, refers to London Town (or Londontowne), a once thriving seaport established in 1683. A town on the Virginia side of the Potomac River is termed “Belhaven ou Alexandrie.”
Ref: P. Lee Phillips, “Virginia Cartography,” Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 37 (1898).
Unsigned oil painting showing a well-dressed surveyor standing with a tripod-mounted theodolite. The surveyor was probably English or American, the theodolite was probably made in London in the second half of the 18th century, and the painting was probably made in England or America.
This map runs from Cascarot Island in the north to Bloody Island opposite Saint Louis, to Dunstand Island just below Saint Louis, and to Cahoe Island in the south. Churchill’s Mill is identified, as is Pages Mills and the U.S. Arsenal.
This map is based on a survey conducted by Robert E. Lee in 1837, and it shows his plans for the construction of a dam from the head of Bloody Island to the Illinois shore, a revetment (a surface for an embankment) to protect the western shore of the island, and a long dike extending south from the bottom of the island.
Ref: “Report of the Chief Topographical Engineer,” in Public Documents Printed by Order of the Senate of the United States vol. 1 (1843): 121-250, on 132.
In the late 1790s at the behest of the American Philosophical Society, the American artist, Gilbert Stuart (1756-1828), began working on a half-length oil portrait of Joseph Priestley, the famous English chemist and political dissident who had recently settled in the United States. This portrait showed Priestley wearing a white stock and dark vest and jacket, his head turned slightly to his right, his hair parted in the middle and hanging low on his neck.
Although he had received American funds for this project, Stuart sold the portrait to T. B. Barclay, an Englishman who visited his Boston studio. After taking the painting to his home near Liverpool, Barclay hired an English artist named William Artaud to complete the parts that Stuart had left unfinished. He also let Artaud make three oil copies of the portrait. One copy came into the possession of Priestley’s descendants in Pennsylvania, and it was from this that American artist, Albert Rosenthal (1863-1939), made this copy. The American Chemical Society presented to the Smithsonian in 1921.
Ref: Henry C. Bolton, ed., The Scientific Correspondence of Joseph Priestley (New York, 1892), pp. 177-179.
Robert E. Schofield, The Enlightened Joseph Priestley (University Park, Pa., 2004).
Edgar Fahs Smith to Albert Rosenthal, Oct. 28, 1921, in Albert Rosenthal papers, Archives of American Art.
Charles M. Mount, “Gilbert Stuart in Washington: With a Catalogue of his Portraits Painted between December 1803 and July 1805,” Records of the Columbia Historical Society 71-72 (1972): 81-127, on pp. 103, 119.
Thomas Kitchin (1718-1784) was an English engraver and cartographer who produced many maps for the London Magazine. This one appeared in the issue for August 1757. It extends from lat. 37°10' to 40°30' north, and from 74° to 80°10' west of London; and from 1°25' east to 4°40' west of Philadelphia. It has a scale of British state miles. The text at top reads “For the Lond: Mag:” The text at bottom reads “Printed for R. Baldwin in Pater Noster Row.”
This hand-colored engraving depicts the compass rose with the names of the winds in several languages (Latin, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, French and German). The figures in the corners represent the seasons. The banner at top reads: “TABULA ANEMOGRAPHICA seu PYXIS NAUTICA, vulgo COMPASS. CHARTE / Ventorum Noia septem linguis græca seil latina, italic, hispanica, gallica, hollandiea et germanica repræsentantio / succinate elaborate / À TOB. CONRAD LOTTERO, CHALCOGRAPHO ET GEOGRAPHO AUGUSTANO” as well as “Cu. Gr. et Pr.S.R.I. / part Rheni, Svev et Jur.” and “Vicariatg. in / Franconici.”
Tobias Conrad Lotter (1717-1777) was a cartographer and engraver in Augsburg who worked with Mattheus Seutter, married Seutter's daughter Euphrosina, and succeeded to part of the business after Seutter’s death in 1757.
This print might have been sold separately or bound in an atlas. It is, for instance, plate #2 in the Atlas Geographique (Nuremberg, 1778).
Ref: Michael Ritter, “Seutter, Probst and Lotter: An Eighteenth-Century Map Publishing House in Germany,” Imago Mundi 53 (2001): 130-135.
This engraving depicts the physics cabinet in the Augustinian monastery at Indersdorf, a Bavarian town located between Dachau and Augsburg. This cabinet is exceptional in large part because of this picture, and because its content and history are extremely well documented. Many of the instruments were made by Georg Friedrich Brander in Augsburg. The air (or vacuum) pump on the right side of the image was based on the form introduced by Professor of Natural Philosophy Wolferd Senguard in Leiden. The instrument in front of this is an electrostatic machine with a Leyden jar. The meridian line on the floor is a feature that was fairly common in in Austria and South Germany in the 18th century.
This image was prepared for the Kurtze historische Nachricht von dem Ursprung und Fortgang deß Stifft- und Klosters Ünderstorff Can. Reg. S. Aug. Congreg. Lateranensis in Ober-Bayrn, Rent-Amts München, Bisthumbs Freysing herausgezogen aus den alt und neuern Kloster-Chronicis anno 1762 (Augsburg, 1762). The signature at bottom left reads: “Georg. Dieffenprunner Pict. Aug. Delin.” That at bottom right reads: “Jos. Et Joan. Klauber Sc. Aug. Vind.”
Ref: Peter Dorner, “Die physikalische Sammlung des Klosters Indersdorf,” in Amperland Heimatkundliche Vierteljahresschrift für die Kreise Dachau (1978), pp. 296-299, 318-321.
Following the establishment of the State of Michigan and the Territory of Wisconsin in 1836, interest arose in the mineral resources of these regions. William Austin Burt, a United States Deputy Surveyor in the region, found that local iron deposits caused serious disturbances in his magnetic compass, leading him to develop the solar compass (several of which are in the Museum collections). Congress authorized a geological survey of the Upper Peninsula region of Michigan in 1847. This map is one result of that project.
This map of Lake Superior and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan extends from 45° to 48°55' north latitude, and from 83°40' to 92°12' longitude west from Greenwich. The several geological features are in different colors.
The text at lower right reads “Prepared PURSUANT to AN Act of Congress APPROVED / MARCH 1ST 1847, ENTITLED ‘AN Act TO ESTABLISH A NEW Land District / AND TO PROVIDE FOR THE SALE OF MINERAL LANDS IN THE / STATE OF Michigan’ / BY / J. W. FOSTER & J. D. WHITNEY, U.S. GEOLOGISTS / J. Ackerman Lithr 379 Broadway, N.Y.”
After graduating from Yale College and studying chemistry with Robert Hare in Philadelphia and with Charles T. Jackson in Boston, Josiah Dwight Whitney (1819-1896) spent several years studying geology and related sciences in Europe. In 1847, as one of the best trained scientists in the United States, he was named first assistant on Jackson’s geological survey of the region around Lake Superior, and was given charge of this project soon thereafter. Working with John Wells Foster (1815-1873), a graduate of Wesleyan University, he prepared a report on the copper lands in 1850, and another on the iron region in 1851, and submitted them to Congress.
J. W. Foster and J. D. Whitney, “Report on the Geology and Topography of a Portion of the Lake Superior Land District in the State of Michigan,” part 2, Congress, Session, House Doc. , 1851.