Remarks on the Geology of the valley of Mackenzie River, with figures and descriptions of Fossils, from that region, in the Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, chiefly collected by the late Robert Kennicott, Esq. ... [within:] Transactions of the Chicago Academy of Sciences. Volume I. Part I.

Chicago: Published by the Academy, 1867 [i.e. 1868].

Price: $3,500.00


About the item

First edition. 19 plates (including a folding map and four hand colored ornithological plates). [8], 129, [1]pp. [Meek's report appearing on pp. 61-114 and illustrated by plates XI-XV]. Extra-illustrated with Plates 21-26 on two folding sheets from the Transactions, Vol. 1, Part II. 1 vols. 4to. Contemporary half morocco and cloth, rubbed. Tipped on presentation leaf, dated June 8, 1869, presenting the volume to Judge William H. Snyder. Arctic Bibliography 11175; Sabin 12618; Howes C375; All Chicago Ante-Fire 1149; Eberstadt 163-019.

Item #339141

"Contains remarks on the age of the rocks, based on discussion by Sir John Richardson and Mr. Ibister, and on the fossils of Kennicott and those collected by Hudson's Bay Co. employees; descriptions of fossil species including ten corals, twenty-three brachiopods, and two molluscs" (Arctic Bibliography). Kennicott was preceded in this region only by the party of Sir John Franklin, the results of whose expedition were lost, making the present work among the earliest if not the first geological accounts of the Yukon. Of additional note is the section within the Remarks concerning petroleum in the region.

The Transactions of the Chicago Academy of Sciences is a scarce ante-fire imprint, with the following printed note dated Feb. 4, 1868 preceding the Contents: "The present Part of the First Volume of the Transactions of the Chicago Academy of Sciences, is the first of a series, which will be issued as rapidly as possible as materials accumulate, and provision is made for their publication. An apology is due to the contributors to this Part, for the delay in its appearance. This has been caused by the occurrence of certain unavoidable accidents, among which may be the fire at the rooms formerly occupied by the Academy, in which a large portion of the plates was destroyed, and the fire at the Printing Office, in which the same calamity happened to the text." The publication ceased after Volume 1, Part II, which appeared in 1869; most copies said to have been destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

Besides the report by Meeks, the present volume includes: J. H. McChesney's Description of Fossils from the Palaeozoic Rocks of the Western States [pages 1-57, plus plates I-IX]; I. A. Lapham's On the Climate of the Country bordering upon the great North American Lakes [pages 58-60, plus Plate X]; C.A. White and O.H. St. John's Descriptions of new Subcarboniferous and Coal Measure Fossils, collected upon the Geological Survey of Iowa (pages 115-127); and William Stimpson's Illustrations of North American Birds in the Museum of the Chicago Academy of Sciences (pages 128-129, plus plates xvi-xix, lithographed by Bowen & Co.).