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JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY (1819-1896)

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Originally appearing in Volume V28, Page 611 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY (1819-1896)  ,
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American geologist, was born at Northampton, Massachusetts, on the 23rd of November 1819 . He graduated at Yale in 1839, and after two years'
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work as assistant in the
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geological survey of New Hampshire, spent some time in
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Europe in the study of chemistry,
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mineralogy and geology . Returning to the
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United States in 1847, he laboured successfully for a time in the copper and iron 1 D . A . Tompkins, Cotton (1901), p . 28.lands of the Lake
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Superior region; in 1855 he became State chemist and professor in the
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Iowa University and took
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part in the geological survey of the state; he subsequently worked in the lead region of the upper
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Missouri
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river, in Wisconsin, and in
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Illinois,
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publishing many reports, singly or in collaboration with others . From 186o to 1874 he was state geologist of California, and issued a comprehensive series of reports on its topography, geology and botany . In 1869, with William H .. Brewer, he determined the heights of the
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principal Rocky Mountain summits; and in recognition of his labours Mount Whitney (14,502, in Inyo county, California, the highest
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peak in the United States) received its name from him . From 1865 until his
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death he was professor of geology and director of the school of
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mining and
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practical geology at Harvard University, residing in Cambridge save when absent on expeditions of research . The records of his investigations are somewhat dispersed; the most homogeneous of his writings are The Metallic
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Wealth of the United States, described and compared with that of other Countries (1854), a work of importance at the time of its issue, and Contributions to American Geology (vol. i. only, 1880) . He died at Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire, on the 18th of August 1896 .

End of Article: JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY (1819-1896)
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