Owen, David Dale; Mineral lands of the United States, Report of a Geological Exploration of part of Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois. Washington, HED 239, 26th Congress, 1st session, 1840. Quarto, pp. 161., 27 folded plates and maps (many hand colored).

The text is complete and in the original brown cloth with gilt spine titles. The binding is tight and clean with only minor scuffing, A.M.N.H. bookplate on paste down with Mrs. M. Schuyler Elliot book plate. The text, plates and maps are very clean. In very good condition.
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Owen (1807-1860) was a Scottish geologist who; along with his brother Richard, emigrated to America in 1828. After assisting Troost in Tennessee he became the state geologist of Indiana. He was later employed by the U. S. government to map the mineral lands of Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois and to survey parts of Minnesota, Nebraska and Iowa. He was also head geologist of the states of Kentucky and Arkansas. Owen argued for a fixed color scheme in geological mapping and first used the term "Carboniferous" in early correlations of the Mississippi Valley. Amongst the contributions made by the Owen survey were some of the first descriptions of new species of invertebrate fossils which are shown in several plates. Many of the plates are hand-colored and quite beautiful.