“Earthquakes in California during the year 1856.” [Pp. 341–346 in:] The American Journal of Science and Arts, Second Series, No. 69—May, 1857.

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First journal appearance of one of the earliest systematic seismological reports on California, preceding by months the great Fort Tejon earthquake of January 1857. John Boardman Trask (1824–1879), a physician turned geologist, here records and analyzes seismic activity across the state, providing one of the foundational documents in American earthquake science. Trask’s “Earthquakes in California during the year 1856” marks the first sustained attempt to treat California’s seismicity as a scientific subject and influenced the subsequent establishment of the California State Geological Survey.

Trask, later appointed the first State Geologist of California, continued compiling earthquake records through works such as his Register of Earthquakes in California, from 1800 to 1863. He is regarded as a pioneering figure in American geology and seismology for his systematic, scientific approach to recording earthquakes in California during a period when such methodologies were rare.

Rare in its original printed wrappers, with other important contributions including “On the Formation of Craters, and the Nature of the Liquidity of Lavas,” a foundational paper in volcanology by G. Poulett Scrope; Asa Gray’s “Statistics of the Flora of the Northern United States,” a key work by America’s leading botanist; and “On the Meridian Instruments of the Dudley Observatory,” by Benjamin Apthorp Gould, pioneering astronomer and founder of the Astronomical Journal.

Price: $350.00