A HISTORY OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Formerly the LYCEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY. By Herman Le Roy Fairchild, Recording Secretary. Read, in abstract, before the Society, May 18, 1886.

New York: Published by the Author, 1887., 1887.. Good. - Octavo, 10 inches high by 6-1/4 inches wide. Yellow boards. The soiled & rubbed covers are detached and the spine has perished. xii & 190 deckle-edged pages, illustrated with a frontispiece portrait of John S. Newberry and 33 full-page plates, including 26 portraits and 7 plates depicting related New York City buildings. Of the plates, 11 are artotype portraits by Edward Bierstadt. The overlapping edges of a few pages are creased and lightly chipped. The contents are bright and near fine and the book would be well-worth rebinding.

Limited edition of 500 numbered copies. RARE.

Among the 34 plates are 11 Artotype photographic portraits by Edward Bierstadt. These consist of portraits of:

John Strong Newberry, physician, geologist and paleontologist

Charles A. Joy, chemist

Benjamin Nicholas Martin, scientist

Charles M. Wheatley, miner and palaeontologist

Thomas Bland, geographer (esp. West Indies)

John H. Redfield, botanist

Robert Dinwiddie, naturalist

Henry Carrington Bolton, chemist and bibliographer of science

Daniel S. Martin, geologist

Oliver Payson Hubbard, professor of chemistry and pharmacology, mineralogy, and geology at Dartmouth

William P. Trowbridge, mechanical engineer, military officer, and naturalist

In addition, the book is illustrated with 5 photogravure portraits consisting of the following:

Thomas Egleston, engineer who helped found Columbia University's School of Mines

Alexis A. Julien, geologist

John H. Hinton

Albert Ripley Leeds, chemist

Herman LeRoy Fairchild, geologist

There are an additional 4 engraved portraits:

Samuel L. Mitchill, physician, naturalist, politician

William C. Redfield, meteorologist

Asa Gray, botanist

John C. Jay, physician, conchologist, a founder of the New York Yacht Club

Another 7 portraits are printed on glossy stock:

John Brodhead Beck, physician, an authority on miscarriage, abortion, infant physiology

James E. De Kay, zoologist

Joseph Delafield, mineralogist, soldier, diplomat

John Torrey, botanist, chemist, and physician

William Cooper, zoologist

Robert H. Brownne, botanist

Louis Elsberg, medicine

Pictured are the following New York City buildings:

College of Physicians and Surgeons, Barclay Street

New York Institution, the old Almshouse

New York Dispensary, White and Centre Streets

The Lyceum Building, 563 Broadway

Stuyvesant Institute

University Medical College on 14th Street

Hamilton Hall, Columbia College

Edward Bierstadt's (1824-1906) younger brother, the well known Hudson River School artist Albert Bierstadt studied painting in Europe and brought back with him knowledge of Joseph Albert's new patented process of printing photographs, called Albertypes. Edward and his older brother Charles Bierstadt were photographic pioneers in their own rights. They operated a photographic studio in New Bedford, Massachusetts and a decade later, moved to New York City. The brothers took pleasure in inventing new techniques and devices. Artotypes, which Bierstadt produced, are defined as a form of photolithograph printed in ink from a photographic plate in bichromated gelatin.