Rivot, Louis Edouard: Dalmont, Victor, editor:

$4,500 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

NOTICE SUR LE LAC SUPÉRIEUR, ÉTATS-UNIS D'AMÉRIQUE. First edition, apparently never translated into English, of this significant study of Lake Superior's copper mines. Louis Edouard Rivot was a French engineer and mining expert who researched and investigated mineral deposits and mining operations throughout France, Austria, Transylvania, Hungary, Westphalia, Belgium, the Harz Mountains, and portions of northern Spain. He also embarked on a journey to Lake Superior in early 1854 to examine its copper mines, after which he published Voyage au Lac Supérieur (1855) and the present volume (1857). The former was eventually translated into English by Don Clark in 1974, while this work exists only in this, the original French edition. Michigan's Upper Peninsula along Lake Superior was a major center of copper mining for indigenous groups for thousands of years, and continued to be profitable for Europeans in the 19th century. After settlers discovered the remarkable deposits there in the 1840s, Michigan became the United States' leading supplier of copper from 1845 to 1887, producing more than three-quarters of the national supply (and at times surpassing ninety percent). Returning to Lake Superior only a year after his first visit, Rivot was shocked by how much had changed. He explains the reasoning behind a supplementary report in his introduction (in translation):"In an earlier work, published in 1855, I made known the general details of the geological landscape around Lake Super

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