Arthur Lakes
1 book in the catalogue, published 2010.
Arthur Lakes was an English-born geologist, artist, teacher and clergyman who spent most of his working life in Colorado. He taught geology at the school that became the Colorado School of Mines and helped unearth some of the first famous dinosaur fossils in the West. We carry one of his books, Strike It Rich, a reprint of his prospecting handbook.
About Arthur Lakes
Lakes was born on December 21, 1844, in Martock, Somerset, England, and died on November 21, 1917, in Nelson, British Columbia, having moved to Ymir in that province in 1912. In Colorado he was a professor at the institution that became the Colorado School of Mines, whose library now bears his name.
In 1877 he found large fossil bones near Morrison, Colorado, and wrote to Yale's Othniel C. Marsh, who then employed him during the rivalry known as the Bone Wars. Remains of Stegosaurus, Apatosaurus, Camptosaurus and Allosaurus came from that work. His sketches and watercolors of the digs at Morrison and Como Bluff, Wyoming, are kept at Yale's Peabody Museum.
His handbook Prospecting for Gold and Silver was printed in Scranton, Pennsylvania, by the Colliery Engineer Company in 1895, according to a library record, and later appeared under a longer name.
What the books share
Lakes connected science to practical work. His field is the rock of the Rocky Mountain West: how ore forms, how fossils lie in the ground and how a layman might read the land. The prospecting handbook turns that knowledge into plain advice for beginners, which is why a reprint still has a place on a Colorado mining shelf. His drawings show a second habit, recording what he saw. Taken together, his work is a snapshot of the Colorado of the 1870s to 1890s, when mines and fossil beds were both new discoveries.
The subjects this author is catalogued under. Open Library record.
Next steps for readers of this author
Walking where the fossils were found
A trip to Dinosaur Ridge puts the 1870s digs on the ground. Check the ridge's site for current visiting information before you set a date.
Pairing the handbook with his biography
Read the Encyclopedia entry first, then Strike It Rich at /library/strike-it-rich/, to see how a field scientist wrote for beginners.
Go deeper
Lakes is remembered for both mining geology and early dinosaur finds. These sources cover his Colorado career, his fossil work near Denver and the library that carries his name.
Arthur Lakes in the Colorado Encyclopedia
An encyclopedia biography that says he discovered dinosaur bones near Morrison in 1877 and that his research on mineral deposits mattered to the mining industry.
Dinosaur Ridge history
The site's history page says Lakes found fossils on the west side of the ridge and sent them to Othniel Charles Marsh at Yale.
Arthur Lakes Library
The Colorado School of Mines library that bears his name, with a catalog, research guides and special collections.
Good to know
Who was Arthur Lakes?
Which of his books do you publish?
Did he teach at the Colorado School of Mines?
Writers like this one are how the list was built
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