Henry Darwin Rogers

Henry Darwin Rogers FRS FRSE LLD (1 August 1808 – 26 May 1866) was an American geologist. His book, The Geology of Pennsylvania: A Government Survey, was regarded as one of the most important publications on American geology issued up to that point.

Biography Rogers was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on 1 August 1808, the third of four sons of Patrick Kerr Rogers and Hannah Blythe Rogers. His parents were from Ireland, near Derry City, and emigrated to the United States where they first met and became married. Patrick Rogers was a supporter of militant efforts to end British rule in Ireland and was forced to flee to avoid persecution. where Henry was educated in the public schools, and in 1819 they moved to Williamsburg, Virginia, where his father was professor of natural philosophy and mathematics in the College of William & Mary from 1819 until 1828, and which Henry attended for a short time. His father provided most of his education. After attending William and Mary, Henry worked at a school in Windsor, Maryland which he administered with his brother William Barton Rogers. It closed in 1828, and he joined his brother teaching at the Maryland Institute.

In 1835, he was chosen to make a geological and mineralogical survey of New Jersey, and, in addition to a preliminary report in 1836, he published Description of the Geology of the State of New Jersey (Philadelphia, 1840). On the organisation of the geological survey of the state of Pennsylvania in 1836, he was appointed geologist in charge, and engaged in active field work until 1841, when the appropriations were discontinued.

In 1842, he and his brother William, who was similarly occupied with a geological survey in Virginia (his reports were published in 1838 and 1841, and he wrote also on the connection between thermal springs and anticlinal axes and faults), brought before the Association of American Geologists and Naturalists their conclusions on the physical structure of the Appalachian chain, and on the elevation of great mountain chains. The researches of H. D. Rogers were elaborated in his final report on Pennsylvania, in which he included a general account of the geology of the United States and of the coal fields of North America and Great Britain. In this important work, he dealt also with the structure of the great coal fields, the method of formation of the strata, and the changes in the character of the coal from the bituminous type to anthracite.

During the ten ensuing years, his services were retained as an expert by various coal companies. The book, in two quarto volumes, contains 1682 pages, is illustrated by 778 woodcuts and diagrams in the text, 69 plates, and 18 folded sheets of sections, and was published by W. Blackwood & Sons (London and Edinburgh), and J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia, in 1858.

The University of Glasgow appointed geologist John Young to replace Rogers.

Works Rogers published more than 30 papers and reports, including the annual and final reports for his state surveys and reports on coal deposits for mining companies. The Geology of Pennsylvania: A Government Survey (two volumes, 1858)