The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Marcou, Jules

MARCOU, mär-koo', Jules, American geologist: b. Salins, France, 20 April 1824; d. Cambridge, Mass., 17 April 1898. He studied at Besançon and the Collége de Saint Louis in Paris; devoted himself to geology after several journeys through Switzerland, in which he made the acquaintance of Jules Thurmann, to whom he owed an introduction to Louis Agassiz. In 1846, after taking part in the geological survey of the Jura Mountains, he was appointed assistant mineralogist in the Sorbonne; in 1848 having been appointed traveling geologist to the Jardin des Plantes came to America, explored the Lake Superior Country together with Agassiz and made wide and important geological studies in Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and after several trips back to Europe settled in Cambridge, where he assisted Agassiz in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, From 1853 to 1855 he was in government employ, and from 1875 till shortly before his death was again in the service. Marcou made a section map of the 35th parallel from the Mississippi to the Pacific, and published ‘Geological Map of the United States and British Provinces of North America’ (1853); ‘A Catalogue of Geological Maps of America’ (1884); ‘Geology of North America’ (1858); ‘Life, Letters and Works of Louis Agassiz’ (1896).