discovery

This rare second edition of Journal of researches... is the final definitive text of Darwin's "first literary child," revised to reflect his developing ideas on evolution. It chronicles his historic five-year voyage on the Beagle to Brazil, Argentina, Tierra del Fuego, Chile, Peru, the Galapagos Islands, New Zealand, Australia, and other countries and islands along the way. This journey was the most important event in Darwin's intellectual life.

Biologist Ernest Everett Just (1883-1941) is considered to be one of the most brilliant African American scientists of his era.  Born in Charleston, SC, he earned scholarships to attend northern schools, graduating top of his class at Dartmouth. He taught at Howard University where he became head of the new zoology department. He also studied fertilization in marine invertebrates at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratories and eventually earned his Ph.D. in experimental embryology at the University of Chicago in 1916.

"Pursuing the wonder of discovery" is an apt tagline for Frank A. Garcia. Despite having no formal education, Mr. Garcia has become one of America’s foremost paleontologists, discovering more than 30 previously unknown species (including two which were named after him). He slid down into phosphate pits with a broken leg, dug up massive prehistoric turtle bones with his dog Webster, and even went digging while recovering from back surgery.

The Weald of southeast England is likely one of the most geologically rich areas within the British Isles.

Dark Companion chronicles the polar expedition of African American explorer, Matthew Henson. Born in 1866, four years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, Henson went on to triumph as one of the first men to “stand on top of the world." On April 6, 1909, Henson along with Robert Peary co-discovered the North Pole. Hundreds had previously attempted and failed to reach the elusive polar ice cap.

Kunstöffner is a kit designed to encourage a young person’s appreciation of art through objects in the collection at the Kunsthaus Zürich, one of the most significant art collections in Switzerland.

This little 19th-century gem, The World in Miniature: Africa, was written to satisfy the curiosity of the British public about unknown Africa.  Based on eye-witness accounts written by the Scottish explorer Mungo Park, who died in West Africa in 1806, the fifty-three chapters cover a wide range of topics: Geography, natural history, ethnicity, types of government, systems of justice, arts and crafts, warfare, food, women, and slavery. The most engaging features in these tiny tomes are the forty-five hand-colored engravings and two maps.

This rare catalogue of an exhibition in Paris in 1883 – held by only six libraries in the U.S. – provides descriptions and brief historical explanations of 102 antiquities from Mexico and the Yucatan that famed French archaeologist Désiré Charnay (1828-1915) acquired during an expedition of 1880-1882, including plans of newly discovered Toltec palaces, Aztec statues and funeral urns, and bas-reliefs found in Yucatan villages.