This week a book arrived call the Geology and Palaeontology of Eighteen Mile Creek and the Lake Shore Sections of Erie County, New York - A Hand-book for the Use of Students and Amateurs by Amadeus W. Grabau Fellow in Palaeontology, Harvard University; Late Instructor in Palaeontology in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Published by the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences 1898-1899.
I was attracted to this book for a number of reasons: Amadeus Grabau (1870-1946) is a famous paleontologist, Elvira Wood (1865-1928) did a number of illustrations for this work, the book is signed to a well known naturalist William P. Alexander (1881-1956) in Buffalo, New York, and the Devonian fossils are very similar to the ones we find in Louisville, Kentucky.
It is inscribed: "To Prof. Wm P. Alexander Whose absence on this occasion we deplore. With the compliments Amadeus W. Grabau Aug 19 /33." William Alexander while born in New York, studied violin and cello at the Conservatory of Music in Leipzig, Germany. He attended the University of Leipzig. He returned to the United States and taught agriculture at Cornell University. He served as assistant to Professor Anna Botsford Comstock (1854-1930). In 1920 he became assistant curator of education at the Buffalo Museum of Science. In 1940, he retired from this position in 1940 after co-authoring seven books and numerous articles about nature. It is possible he crossed paths with someone I have written earlier in this blog Elizabeth Letson (1874-1919) who was one time director of the museum and noted malacologist and resident of Buffalo, New York.
