Heading: (Mining)
Author: Peele, Robert
Title: Autograph Letter Signed - 1914 producing a classic mining engineer's handbook
Place Published: Sabbath Day Point, Lake George, New York
Publisher:
Date Published: Aug. 27, 1914
Description:

2 pp.

To Professor (Henry Smith) Munroe. “I…regret to hear that the hardships and excitement of the past few weeks had a bad effect on your health… I am sorry you feel obliged to say definitely that you cannot see your way to completing the work you had begun for the Min.Engr.Pocket Book…I have still some hope of a feasible compromise…Kurtz very unexpectedly wrote me that he wants a leave of absence for the coming year…I wrote Kurtz that… nothing could be done… until we know the state of your health and whether you could be able to resume your work… My own feeling is that he ought not to ask it and that is not practicable to grant his request…The war is too big a subject to write about…” Peele (1848-1952) “gained international renown for his monumental contributions to mining literature” (Mining Hall of Fame), compiling the Mining Engineer’s Handbook, written by a “staff of specialists” like Munroe, which “fulfilled a need throughout the mining world and sold more than 100,000 copies worldwide”, going through three editions between 1918 and 1941, the last edition remaining in print nearly fifty years after Peele’s death. That this letter was written four years before the first printing, days after the start of World War I, is evidence of the amount of effort that went into producing what became a mining classic. Professor Munroe founded the Department of Mining Engineering at Columbia University, immediately recruiting Peele as Adjunct Professor and later, Edward Kurtz as lecturer on Mining Law. Peele’s courses were popular for offering “hands-on experience” in actual working mines, while Kurtz was soon replaced, as students found his legal lectures light on Geological science.

Near fine.