Raphael Pumpelly

Raphael Pumpelly (1837 to 1923) was an American geologist and explorer born at Owego, New York. He graduated in 1859 from the Freiberg Mining Academy, traveled through the mining districts of Europe to study geology and metallurgy, and in 1860 was engaged in mining operations in Arizona. From 1861 to 1863 he surveyed Yesso Island of Japan and the coalfields of northern China, then made the first extensive survey of the Gobi Desert and explored Mongolia and Siberia. He was Professor of Mining Science at Harvard from 1866 to 1875, surveyed the copper region of Michigan and the iron ores and coal fields of Missouri, and in 1879 organized the division of economic geology of the new United States Geological Survey. In 1879 he proposed that the lakes of the Canadian Shield result from glacial erosion stripping a mantle of weathered rock, and in 1903 he led a Carnegie-funded archaeological dig at the Anau mounds in Turkmenistan. He was president of the Geological Society of America in 1905.