A Comparison of the Features of the Earth and the Moon. Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, part of volume XXXIV

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Folio (12 6/8 x 9 6/8 inches). 25 plates of the moon from photographs. Original green cloth, gilt (surface abrasions, extremities worn). Provenance: withdrawn library stamps of the Smithsonian Institute and the Library of Congress on the verso of the front free endpaper and the title-page. First edition. Shaler, born 1841, occupies a strategic place in the history of American science and education during the Darwinian era; a contemporary of outstanding British naturalists as Darwin, Lyell, Huxley, Tyndall, and Galton, whom he met during a European tour in the 1870s. His most celebrated work was " Nature and Man in America", published in 1891, and "reissued in new editions until well into the twentieth century. As well as outlining the continent's geological structure, it dealt with such themes as prairie homesteading, folk tillage practices, the "Great American Desert," the use of anthropometric and actuarial data to assess population quality, and aesthetic responses to landscape. The following year he delivered the Winkley Foundation Lectures at Andover Theological School on the relations of science and religion; published as The Interpretation of Nature (1893), these lectures revealed Shaler's commitment to a teleological view of humanity's place in nature. His 1905 Man and the Earth represents the culmination of his thinking on natural resources, going well beyond George Perkins Marsh's diagnoses by focusing on mineral exhaustion, land reclamation, and the need for alternative sources of energy and by reiterating his earlier warnings about soil erosion and deforestation. The broad, prolific, and lucid nature of his writings fostered his image as purveyor of science to the nation, especially in providing a "scientific" perspective on issues of burning sociopolitical concern" (David N. Livingstone for ADNB). N° de ref. del artículo 001463

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