John Merle Coulter contributed tremendously to the rapid advance of botany in North America during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. An exploring mind, deeply religious spirit, and scientist's respect for truth, combined with singular personal charm, made of him not only a missionary in science, but a natural leader among the botanists of the United States. He set for his goal the building of a complete structure of the house of botany, and he took the lead in organizing defined branches of study which eliminated the waste of duplicated effort. The thread of this story of his life is maintained largely through excerpts of the correspondence of Coulter and his associates and by means of articles from the Botanical Gazette, which he founded. Originally published in 1944. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

After the Civil War, four geological and geographical surveys, later called the Great Surveys, Undertook the massive task of finding out what lay west of the hundredth meridian in the vast American wilderness. Parties led by Ferdinand Vandiveer Hayden, medical doctor turned geologist, Clarence King, aristocrat and intellectual, John Wesley Powell, conqueror of the Colorado River, and Lieutenant George M. Wheeler, determined military man and scientist, roamed over the wild country during the years 1867-79, observing, analyzing, mapping, and at the end of each season, returning to Washington to publish their results. For the first time in book form, Richard A. Bartlett has recreated for the reader the hardships, both physical and financial, the discoveries, and the high adventures of the bold, headstrong, and often brilliant men of the Great Surveys as they climbed the Rockies, explored the Yellowstone, or battled the Colorado.

Vols. 19-34 include "Bibliography of education" for 1899-1906, compiled by James I. Wyer and others.