Cloud Crystals: A Snow-Flake Album. Collected and Edited by a Lady
New York: D. Appleton & Company, (1868). Hardcover. Originally published in 1864, this was issued several years later in a gift book format. Includes 27 plates and half-title in sepia and white along with many black and white in-text illustrations. The plates show hundreds of different snowflake formations. The contents includes mostly prose and poetry on snow; however, some scientific writings are included. A scientific introduction including a letter from Louis Agassiz, derived in part from Scorseby's observations in the Arctic, and several pages on the forms and modifications of snow crystals with experiments by scientist Charles Smallwood begins the book. Several contibutions were written expressely for this book by John Neal, Lowell, Ruskin, Bryant, Emerson, Whittier, et. al. Other included authors are Shakespeare, Cowper, Tennyson, Swift, Etc. This was the first widely circulated American work on the crystallography of the snowflake. Bound in the original full leather publisher's binding with gilt title to spine and both boards. Marbled endpapers, gilt dentelles, and full edges gilt. The front hinge is starting with a five inch crack to the leather. Wear to edges with boards exposed at corners. Wear and rubbing to hinges and fading to spine. Minor dampstain to top corners of some pages, but no text affected. Bookplate of Samuel W. French to front pastedown. 158 pages. SCI/080822. Very Good. More