1898, Schmeisser, Vogelsang. The Gold-fields of Australasia / Australasie, 2 vols.

Condition : good, small wormholes, slight foxing. A good, untrimmed copy.
Illustrations : folding frontispiece, 12 black and white plates and portfolio with 13 large folding plates (including coloured maps and plans).
Binding : publisher's red full cloth.
Volume : 2 volumes (text and portfolio).
Format : in-4.
Pages : XX, 254 pp. 1 f.
Publisher : London, Macmillan.
Date : 1898.

 First English edition.

Karl Adolf Schmeißer, also called Karl Schmeisser, (1855 - 1924) was a German geologist and the first director of the Prussian Geological Institute. After completing his Abitur, Schmeißer studied mining and passed the referendary examination on 10 July 1879 and the assessor's examination on 10 February 1883. He then worked as a mining assessor and "auxiliary worker" at the Saarbrücken mining authority and in the same year moved to the Cologne railway authority as a government assessor. Since 1889 he had been working as a master miner in the mining district of Magdeburg and was appointed Bergrat in 1900. In 1893 Schmeißer travelled to South Africa on behalf of the Prussian government to study diamond mining in Kimberley and to gather information on gold mining in the Transvaal. Back in Germany in 1894, he first worked as a mining official at the Aachen Mining Department, then travelled to Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand from 1895 to 1897 for further gold mining research.