MANUSCRIPT COLLECTION
Dates:
1864-1886
Abstract:
Leo Lesquereux emigrated from his native Switzerland to Ohio in 1848, and quickly established himself as one of America's foremost bryologists and paleobotanists. Working with the state geological surveys of Pennsylvania and several states in the Mississippi Valley, he contributed some of the earliest descriptions of the Carboniferous flora in North America and helped flesh out the basic geology of coal formation.
The autobiography of Leo Lesquereux provides an engaging account of the early life of one of Victorian America's best known bryologists and paleobotanists. Consisting of 14 letters addressed to his friend, J. Peter Lesley, the letters cover only the years between Lesquereux's childhood in Switzerland and his emigration to the United States in 1848. Written after his retirement at the age of 78, they shed light on his education, the illness that led to his loss of hearing, and his studies of peat deposits in Europe, and they provide short vignettes about watchmaking and about his peers Louis and August Agassiz and Arnold Guyot.
Call #:
Mss.B.L567
Extent:
0.25 Linear feet
Subjects:
View Subjects
Agassiz, Louis, 1807-1873 | Autobiography | Bryology | Coal -- Geology | Germany -- Description and travel -- 19th century | Guyot, A. (Arnold), 1807-1884 | Lesley, J. P. (J. Peter), 1819-1903 | Lesquereux, Leo, 1806-1889 | Paleobotanists | Peat bogs | Prussia -- Description and travel -- 19th century | Swiss -- United States