Autograph Letter, Signed, to Geologist Josiah Dwight Whitney
Handwritten letter, two pages on a single 8" x 5" sheet of letterhead from the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale College, dated January 19, 1869. Folding creases from mailing, else fine. Brewer (1828-1910) was a naturalist and explorer who was recruited in 1860 by Whitney, the California State Geologist, to lead the botanical department of the newly established California Geological Survey. "During the survey he collected 2,000 plants, studied California forests, and measured the giant sequoias....[He] also made geologic collections and discussed volcanic geology, glaciers, minerals, and fossils in his journal and reports....Brewer worked on the survey in California for four years; during the fourth he was offered the chair of agriculture at Yale's Sheffield Scientific School. In the first three years of the survey he had traveled 13,507 miles, including more than 6,000 on horseback and nearly 3,000 on foot....He accepted the Yale appointment and moved to New Haven, Connecticut, in 1865" (ANB). In this letter to Whitney, who was by then a Professor of Geology at Harvard, he discusses his plans to spend the summer in Cambridge and to deliver two lectures there, concluding "If I can stay with you as you speak of, it will certainly be an accommodation and a saving of time. I am in excellent health again, rather too fat, and have more to do this term than I had last." Letters by Brewer are quite scarce in the marketplace, and this one is particularly desirable for its association with one of the most notable of Brewer's colleagues and friends.
Item #24185
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