Scientist of the Day - Henry Darwin Rogers

“Pulpit Rocks, Warrior Ridge, Huntingdon Co,” chromolithographed frontispiece, slightly cropped, The Geology of Pennsylvania; a Government Survey, by Henry Darwin Rogers, vol. 1, 1858 (Linda Hall Library)

Henry Darwin Rogers, an American geologist, was born Aug. 1, 1808. Both of his parents were Irish folk who fled their native land in a time of political rebellion, only to meet and marry in Philadelphia, where Henry was born. His middle name was the result of his father's admiration for Erasmus Darwin, the grandfather of Charles.  They moved to Baltimore, then Williamsburg, where the father became Professor of Natural Philosophy at the College of William and Mary. Henry studied chemistry at first, and medicine, but during a visit to London, he met Henry de la Beche, who kindled in Henry a desire to study and teach geology. Since De la Beche would soon head up the Geological Survey of Great Britain, he may have planted that seed in Henry as well, who would go on to lead several geological surveys after his return to the U.S.

Portrait of Henry Darwin Rogers, photoengraving, Popular Science Monthly, vol. 50, p. 145, 1896 (Linda Hall Library)

Henry had been educated mostly by his father, but he earned an MA at the University of Pennsylvania in 1834, and was hired immediately as a professor of geology, where he would teach until 1846. During that time, he took on the task of leading the geological survey of New Jersey (we do not have that report, issued in 1840) and then that of Pennsylvania, which was a massive undertaking, especially since one of the world's least understood mountain chains, the Appalachians, runs right through Pennsylvania. The state ran out of money by 1840, and Rogers had to wait almost 20 years to get the results published. He moved to Boston in 1846 (where his brother William would soon found MIT and become its first president), and when he received no job offer from Harvard, Henry moved to Scotland, and, in 1857, was offered a professorship at the University of Glasgow, making him, I do believe, the first American academic to obtain a professorship at a European University.

“Geological map of the United States and British North America,” by Henry Darwin Rogers, detail of colored engraving, The Physical Atlas of Natural Phenomena, a new and enl. ed., by Alexander Keith Johnston, plate 8, 1856 (Linda Hall Library)

The reason Henry moved to Scotland was to see if he could get his Geology of Pennsylvania printed in Edinbugh, and the illustrations engraved and lithographed, in the city that engraved and published Audubon's Birds of America. And he found he could indeed. His 1600 pages of text and numerous illustrations were published by Blackwood of Edinburgh in 1858, and even though the copies sold in the U.S. have an imprint of Lippincott of Philadelphia on the title page (fourth image), the only thing Lippincott printed was that title page,

Title page of volume 2, The Geology of Pennsylvania; a Government Survey, by Henry Darwin Rogers, 1858 (Linda Hall Library)

Before he got his book into print, Henry agreed to supply a geological map of the United States to Alexander Keith Johnston, who had published the first edition of his thematic atlas in 1850.  Rogers’ map for Johnston was published in 1855, as the eighth geological map in the Atlas (we have both editions of Johnston's Atlas), and it is beautiful, engraved rather than lithographed, and printed  in color, or so says Johnston. The Atlas is too large to be easily photographed (by me and my iPhone), so I show only a small section, which includes the title panel with Rogers’ name, and those pesky Appalachians, with their tight folds running northeast towards New England (third image).

“Baltimore Comps Mines, Wilkes-Barre,” chromolithographed frontispiece, uncropped, The Geology of Pennsylvania; a Government Survey, by Henry Darwin Rogers, vol. 2, 1858 (Linda Hall Library)

Our copy of Geology of Pennsylvania is not in great shape, with covers detached and both fat volumes stored in protective archival boxes. But the illustrations are in good condition, and there are a variety and a plenitude of them. Each volume begins with a lithographed frontispiece of some noted Pennsylvania geological feature; these are not just tinted, but printed from multiple stones in full color, and they are gorgeous – we show them both, Pulpit Rocks in Huntingdon County (first image), and a worked coal mine in Wilkes-Barre (fifth image).  There are also a number of full-page monochrome sepia lithographs that show views that are sometimes geological, sometimes not, as with the scene we include, depicting an inclined railway (sixth image).

“Mount Pisgah Plane [inclined railway], Mauch Chunk,” monochrome lithograph, uncropped, The Geology of Pennsylvania; a Government Survey, by Henry Darwin Rogers, vol. 2, 1858 (Linda Hall Library)

And as in any geological survey of the day, there are dozens of plates with rows and rows of geological sections. Often these depict strata, but sometimes they contain views, and these are exquisitely drawn. We show a detail of one of these plates, with a view of a coal mine (seventh image).

Drawing of a coal mine, detail of two of a series of such scenes on a large folding plate, engraving, The Geology of Pennsylvania; a Government Survey, by Henry Darwin Rogers, vol. 2, 1858 (Linda Hall Library)

Rogers had a theory of the origin of the folding that one sees in the Appalachians, which involved both elevation by heat, and sideways stress produced by ripples in the crust caused by currents in the molten magma below. It didn't turn out to be correct, but neither did any other hypothesis before plate tectonics. But it was widely discussed, especially in Great Britain, and it was why he was offered the position at Glasgow.

The gravestone of Henry Darwin Rogers, Dean Cemetery, Edinburgh (Wikimedia commons)

Unfortunately, Rogers' health had never been good, and he tended to overwork, and he died in 1866, at the rather young age of 57. He was buried in the venerable resting place of Dean Cemetery in Edinburgh, where you may also find the memorial stones of Joseph Bell, Edward Forbes (who also died much too young), James Forbes, Robert Chambers, and a few other scientific legends of the 19th century.

William B. Ashworth, Jr., Consultant for the History of Science, Linda Hall Library and Associate Professor emeritus, Department of History, University of Missouri-Kansas City. Comments or corrections are welcome; please direct to ashworthw@umkc.edu.