Cleveland, Parker

(b. Rowley [Byfield Parish], Massachusetts, 15 January 1780; d. Brunswick, Maine, 15 October 1858),

mineralogy.

Cleaveland was the author of An Elementary Treatise on Mineralogy and Geology, the first important mineralogical text published in the United States.

A descendant of the early Puritan settlers of northern Massachusetts, Cleaveland remained a religious conservative. He was graduated from Harvard College in 1799 and taught in secondary schools at Haverhill, Massachusetts, and York, Maine, until 1803. During this period he vacillated between entering the ministry or the legal profession. In 1803 he became a tutor in mathematics and natural philosophy at Harvard and finally elected to pursue a scientific career in 1805, when he accepted an appointment as professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at the recently established Bowdoin College at Brunswick, Maine. Four early publications in the Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences described meteorological phenomena and fossil shells.

The exploitation of local mineral deposits stimulated Cleaveland’s interest in mineralogy, and he began to teach courses in mineralogy and chemistry in 1808. The growing interest in the United States in the study of both practical and theoretical mineralogy, as evidenced by the popularity of public lectures and the formation of mineral cabinets, convinced Cleaveland that the publication of an elementary work on American mineralogy was desirable. In 1812 he commenced a wide correspondence to collect information concerning the locations and types of mineral deposits in the various states and territories. Almost every contemporary American naturalist responded and aided Cleaveland in the project.

The theoretical part of Cleaveland’s work was compiled from the writings of European scientists. Thus, it fully described Haüy’s crystallographic theory and method and closely followed Brongniart’s systematic mineralogy. It also displayed a neptunist bias, in that Cleavelnd not only assumed an aqueous origin for basalt but also classified rocks according to the Wernerian chronological-stratigraphic system. However, because it was the first important American mineralogical text and contained much valuable information concerning the minerals of the United States, it was favorably received and praised on both sides of the Atlantic. A greatly enlarged, two-volume, second edition that included a reprint of Maclure’s map was published in 1822. Cleaveland continued to plan a third edition until 1842, but increased academic responsibilities prevented him from completing the necessary revisions.

Cleaveland was interested more in the orderly arrangement of scientific data than in scientific investigation or the development of theory. As a teacher he was a stern disciplinarian and rigidly conservative. Thus, he avoided teaching geological theory when he perceived that it was becoming a threat to the biblical account of creation. Because of the recognition given to his Treatise, however, he received teaching offers from almost every major American college; but he continued to teach at Bowdoin until the day of his death. He is honored in the eponymous Cleavelandite, a member of the feldspar family so named by H. L. Alling in 1936.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Cleaveland’s magnum opus was An Elementary Treatise on Mineralogy and Geology (Boston, 1816; 2nd ed., 2 vols., 1822). See also Results of Meteorological Observations Made at Brunswick, Maine, Between 1807 and 1859… (Washington, D.C., 1867). There is an extensive collection of Cleaveland’s MS material in the archives of the library of Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine.

II. Secondary Literature. On Cleaveland or his work, see Nehemiah Cleaveland, Address Made at the Opening of the Cleaveland Cabinet, July 10, 1873 (Boston, 1873); Thomas A. Riley, “Goethe and Parker Cleaveland,” in Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 67 (1952), 350–374; and Leonard Woods, The Life and Character of Parker Cleaveland (Brunswick, Me., 1860).

John G. Burke