Hitchcock, Edward, Report on the Geology, Mineralogy, Botany, and Zoology of Massachusetts, ... .in Four Parts: Part 1. Economical Geology. Part II. Topographical Geology. Part III. Scientific Geology. Part IV. Catalogue of Animals and Plants. With a descriptive list of the specimens of rocks and minerals. Illustrated by wood-cuts and an atlas of plates. First Edition, Amherst, Press of J.S. and C. Adams, 1833. Quarto, text, pp. xii, 692 with text woodcuts. Oblong quarto atlas, 19 plates (1 hand-colored) and hand-colored folded geological map. (Atlas contains map but lacks plates: 2, 4, 7, 10, 15, 17, 18, 19.)
The text is in the original green cloth with the original paper spine label. The spine has been restored, inner hinges tightened. Old library book plate on inner paste down, inscription on first free end sheet. The text is bright and clean. The atlas map and plates are loose and in a later archival folder with a facsimile of the original atlas cover. The colored map is bright and clean as are the plates. Over all a good+ copy with the rare geological mp present.
Hitchcock (1793-1864), a noted naturalist and geologist at Amherst College; is best remembered for his pioneering studies of New England's geology and paleontology. He discovered evidence of glaciation in western Massachusetts and performed early pioneering studies in stratigraphy, vertebrate paleontology and paleoichnology in the Triassic sandstones of Connecticut and Massachusetts. Hitchcock directed the first geological survey of Massachusetts and has the distinction of having inaugurated and carried to completion the first official survey of a state under state auspices. Hitchcock issued a number of reports and maps based on surveys between 1832 and 1841. The above work is the first comprehensive results of that first survey.
The map utilizes 29 different combinations of color and patterns to display geological formations and features, and covers all of Massachusetts, including the outlying islands of Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and No Man's Land. The maps and plates are by Pendleton's Lithography, Boston, with the plates based on sketches drawn by the author's wife.
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