Fossil impressions
Date
1854
Creator
George M Silsbee (American) , Photographer
Object type
Material
Technique
Dimensions
height (print): 199mm
width (print): 203mm
width (print): 203mm
Subject
Content object
Description
Study of a geological specimen, a slab of grey sandstone from Greenfield, Connecticut, USA. The rock exhibits various trace fossils, including tracks identified by the author as being of sea-turtles (Chelonii), birds and other creatures.
Frontispiece plate from the book Remarks on some fossil impressions in the sandstone rocks of Connecticut River by John C Warren (Ticknor and Fields, Boston, 1854).
The volume is the first American scientific book to be illustrated with a photograph and was an early contribution to the study of paleoichnology.
The accompanying description of the plate states that: ‘We are indebted to Photography for enabling us to represent the remarkable slab from Greenfield, and its numerous objects…This slab is four feet seven and one-half inches in one direction, and four feet one inch transversely to this; in thickness it measures about an inch…Every part of it is full of interest, and presents a field for protracted observation. The surface represented in the plate may, by the aid of a magnifier, be studied without the presence of the stone itself; for the photographic art displays the most minute objects without alteration or omission’.
John Collins Warren (1778-1856) American surgeon and paleontologist, practiced in Boston, Massachusetts. He collaborated with the daguerreotypist Josiah Johnson Hawes (1808–1901) in using early photography to capture surgical operations.
Frontispiece plate from the book Remarks on some fossil impressions in the sandstone rocks of Connecticut River by John C Warren (Ticknor and Fields, Boston, 1854).
The volume is the first American scientific book to be illustrated with a photograph and was an early contribution to the study of paleoichnology.
The accompanying description of the plate states that: ‘We are indebted to Photography for enabling us to represent the remarkable slab from Greenfield, and its numerous objects…This slab is four feet seven and one-half inches in one direction, and four feet one inch transversely to this; in thickness it measures about an inch…Every part of it is full of interest, and presents a field for protracted observation. The surface represented in the plate may, by the aid of a magnifier, be studied without the presence of the stone itself; for the photographic art displays the most minute objects without alteration or omission’.
John Collins Warren (1778-1856) American surgeon and paleontologist, practiced in Boston, Massachusetts. He collaborated with the daguerreotypist Josiah Johnson Hawes (1808–1901) in using early photography to capture surgical operations.
Associated place