Sea Moss Souvenir, Cal. [Bound in Whale Bone]

[Monterey, CA?], 1900. A lovely commercially produced (though likely in small quantities) album of colorful preserved marine algae specimens mounted on six leaves of cardstock and enclosed within thin sections of whale vertebrae. The algae samples are beautifully arranged and still have brilliant color. The bone front cover has a hollowed-out center lined with cardstock with specimens mounted in the center. The rear cover is a solid piece of bone. The binding is seWn with a green silk ribbon. An exceptional example of a specimen book, both well preserved and beautiful.

The book has 17 mounted specimens inside plus two or three on the cover; the interior specimens are numbered in pencil and keyed to a 23-name list of species mounted to the rear pastedown. This specimen book appears complete; the books were likely assembled based on the available "sea moss" and likely varied from copy to copy. A short printed note about whaling in old Monterey, where whale bones were so plentiful they were used as paving stones, is also mounted on the rear pastedown. The title comes from an ink stamp on the first leaf. The leaves are hand-cut to fit within the outline of the vertebrae sections with pinking shears, leaving a sawtooth edge.

Two stores advertised sea moss books with whalebone covers in 1895, suggesting an approximate date for this example (see Los Angeles Times, Dec. 12, 1895, p. 8 and Oakland Enquirer, Dec. 20, 1895, p. 5). Surviving examples are uncommon.

OCLC locates a similar book in the Ernst Mayr Library at Harvard (no. 920196446). The printed specimen list is the same as this copy, and the Mayr Library notes that it is the same list as a book titled, Sea moss, Catalina, California. The text relating in Monterey in this copy may indicate that it was sold in Monterey but supplied by a vendor in Southern California. The Mayr copy has 18 specimens, but does not mention specimens on the cover. A fine copy, exceptionally well preserved, with an early, possibly original cotton ribbon to wrap around the book to keep it closed.