The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Whitney, Josiah Dwight

WHITNEY, Josiah Dwight, an American geologist, born in Northampton, Mass., Nov. 23, 1819. He graduated at Yale college in 1839, and studied in Europe between 1842 and 1846. He was engaged in the geological survey of New Hampshire in 1840; of the Lake Superior mineral region, with J. W. Foster, in 1847-'50; of Iowa (and the lead region of Wisconsin) in 1855-'60; and he was head of the California survey from 1860 to 1874, when it was abandoned. On the results of the three surveys last mentioned he has published reports. Since 1865 he has been professor of practical geology in Harvard university. He has also published “Use of the Blowpipe,” &c., translated from Berzelius (Boston, 1845); “Metallic Wealth of the United States” (Philadelphia, 1854); the “Yosemite Guide Book” (San Francisco, 1869); and many papers in American and foreign journals.