Ward, Henry A. & Sibley, Hiram L.,; Notice of the Megatherium Cuvieri, the Giant Fossil Ground-Sloth of South America presented to the University of Rochester by Hiram Sibley, Esq. Rochester, 1864. Quarto, pp. 34, several text illustrations, large folded frontispiece plate of Megatherium Cuvieri specimen.

The work is complete and in the original stamped linen boards with gilt stamped Megatherium Cuvieri vignette on cover surrounded by gilt title. Binding is tight and has been re-cased and has later end sheets. Text is clean with very faint damp margin on upper edge and owners stamp on title page. Old penned catalog number near name.

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Hiram Sibley, (1836-1920) was a self made millionaire. Sibley started as a laborer in a cotton mill in Lima, New York at age 16 and at age 21 founded his own machine shop which he sold ten years later for a large sum of money. He then entered the banking and real estate business where his wealth grew and in 1851 started a telegraph company and eventually he combined his company with others and thus the Western Union Company was born with Sibley as the first president. He was to expand the reach of the company from the Atlantic to the Pacific and then to Siberia from Alaska. Sibley was also active in the expansion of Cornell University and Rochester University and donated numerous displays to both. He had provided the funds to build a library and Geological Cabinet at the University of Rochester and probably had Henry Ward mount the display of the Megatherium (which was a gift from Sibley) in the building. Ward (1836-1906) was an American naturalist and geologist. He taught at the University of Rochester until 1865 when he founded Ward’s Natural Science in Rochester. The company collected rock, mineral and fossil specimens worldwide and sold these to colleges and museums. Ward was struck and killed by an automobile in Buffalo in 1906, making him the first automobile fatality in that city. Although many attribute this work to Sibley it was Ward who wrote it and provides the detailed description of the specimen.