Lot 68: A memorial to Robert Kennicott, the naturalist who ventured to Alaska

[ALASKA]

Transactions of the Chicago Academy of Sciences, Volume I, Part II. Chicago: Published by the Academy, 1869. Finely bound in modern three-quarters black morocco gilt over marbled boards, an early wrapper bound in at front; 11 1/8 x 7 1/4 inches (28.5 x 18.5 cm); with frontispiece portrait of Robert Kennicott, 8 hand-colored lithographed plates by E. Sheppard, paginated from [133]-337. Faint offset to title and repaired tear at gutter, with a Smithsonian withdrawal stamp, penciled names of species on tissue guards, inscription to the wrapper at front, a few marginal notations to the text in ink.

A very attractive copy. The first section of this extract offers a memorial to the American naturalist Robert Kennicott with a long reprint Kennicott's travel journal from his final expedition to Alaska. Kennicott founded the Chicago Academy of Sciences in 1857 and died on an expedition up the Yukon River in 1867. The memorial is followed by Dall and Barrister's List of the Birds of Alaska, with Biographical Notes before Baird's On Additions to the Bird Fauna of North America Made by the Scientific Corps of the Russo-American Telegraph Expedition and Scudder's Preliminary List of the Butterflies of Iowa.

While this work offers much on Alaska, it also an uncommon Chicago pre-fire imprint. HRS Chicago 1473; Sabin 12618; Howes C375.