Travels in North America; with geological observations on the United States, Canada, and Nova Scotia. London: John Murray, 1845.
First edition. Charles and Mary Lyell’s first American tour (July 1841-August 1842) combined a formal lecture commitment with an extended programme of geological reconnaissance. In 1841 Lyell was invited to deliver a course of public geology lectures at the newly founded Lowell Institute in Boston, which aimed to bring advanced science to a wider American audience. Lyell himself saw North America as a vast comparative laboratory where he could test and extend the uniformitarian principles he had developed in Principles of Geology, especially regarding deep time, sedimentation, and climate.
During this tour he examined the Devonian rocks of New York and Pennsylvania, the recession of Niagara Falls, and the coalfields of Nova Scotia, all of which he regarded as crucial evidence for reconstructing geological history.
Lyell took the opportunity to strengthen ties with American and Canadian geologists, such as Benjamin Silliman at Yale, James Hall of the New York Geological Survey, and John William Dawson in Nova Scotia.
His wife, Mary, was an accomplished geologist and conchologist in her own right, assisting with field observations. She herself collected and catalogued large quantities of fossil shells.
Donovan p.91; Ward & Carozzi 1431.
2 volumes, octavo in 12s (200 x 120mm). I: pp. xiii (title, dedication, preface, contents), [1 (blank), [1 (list of plates and maps), 1 (blank)], 316, folding hand-coloured lithographic frontispiece of Niagara Falls, hand-coloured engraved geological map with section, 2 folding plain lithographic plates, text-figures, 2 of which full-page; II: pp. viii (title, contents), 272, 32 (publisher’s ads dated 1852), large folding hand-coloured engraved geological map as frontispiece, one engraved plate and one folding lithographic plate, text-figs. (Light marginal water stains, light offsetting and a few spots.) Original green cloth blocked in blind, by Remnant and Edmonds with their ticket on rear pastedown, spines lettered in gilt, uncut (extremities lightly rubbed, head-, tailcaps and corners a fraction more heavily, spines slightly faded).
Provenance: Dominic Winter Books Auctions (25 Jan 2017 lot 141 [part lot]).
Travels in North America; with geological observations on the United States, Canada, and Nova Scotia. London: John Murray, 1845.
First edition. Charles and Mary Lyell’s first American tour (July 1841-August 1842) combined a formal lecture commitment with an extended programme of geological reconnaissance. In 1841 Lyell was invited to deliver a course of public geology lectures at the newly founded Lowell Institute in Boston, which aimed to bring advanced science to a wider American audience. Lyell himself saw North America as a vast comparative laboratory where he could test and extend the uniformitarian principles he had developed in Principles of Geology, especially regarding deep time, sedimentation, and climate.
During this tour he examined the Devonian rocks of New York and Pennsylvania, the recession of Niagara Falls, and the coalfields of Nova Scotia, all of which he regarded as crucial evidence for reconstructing geological history.
Lyell took the opportunity to strengthen ties with American and Canadian geologists, such as Benjamin Silliman at Yale, James Hall of the New York Geological Survey, and John William Dawson in Nova Scotia.
His wife, Mary, was an accomplished geologist and conchologist in her own right, assisting with field observations. She herself collected and catalogued large quantities of fossil shells.
Donovan p.91; Ward & Carozzi 1431.
2 volumes, octavo in 12s (200 x 120mm). I: pp. xiii (title, dedication, preface, contents), [1 (blank), [1 (list of plates and maps), 1 (blank)], 316, folding hand-coloured lithographic frontispiece of Niagara Falls, hand-coloured engraved geological map with section, 2 folding plain lithographic plates, text-figures, 2 of which full-page; II: pp. viii (title, contents), 272, 32 (publisher’s ads dated 1852), large folding hand-coloured engraved geological map as frontispiece, one engraved plate and one folding lithographic plate, text-figs. (Light marginal water stains, light offsetting and a few spots.) Original green cloth blocked in blind, by Remnant and Edmonds with their ticket on rear pastedown, spines lettered in gilt, uncut (extremities lightly rubbed, head-, tailcaps and corners a fraction more heavily, spines slightly faded).
Provenance: Dominic Winter Books Auctions (25 Jan 2017 lot 141 [part lot]).
