The Collected Library

Folio. Large folding chart. Modern quarter cloth, contemporary marbled boards; original printed wrappers bound in. Provenance: Alexander Agassiz (1835-1910), scientist and engineer (ownership inscription on front wrapper); Calumet & Hecla Mining Company (inscription on front wrapper dated 3 December 1888); deposited by Agassiz to the Library of the Musuem of Comparative Zoology (bookplate and stamp on front wrapper).

FIRST EDITION. In 1867, Aggasiz became superintendent of the struggling Calumet copper mine in Michigan, later merging it with the adjacent Hecla mine to form the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company Under Agassiz's leadership, this company became the largest copper producer in the United States, at times responsible for nearly half of the country's total copper production. Concurrently with his mining success, Agassiz pursued his passion for marine biology and oceanography. He assisted Charles Wyville Thomson in examining and classifying the collections of the 1872 Challenger Expedition, which laid the foundation for modern oceanography by circumnavigating the globe, collecting vast amounts of data, and cataloging over 4,000 previously unknown species.