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Table of ContentsList of Illustrations, ix
Geological Enterprise, 11
The Technological Science of 
The Rock Oil Report, 189
Epilogue - Americanization of Notes, 25
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Scientists & Swindlers"In this impressively researched and highly original work, Paul Lucier explains how science became an integral part of American technology and industry in the nineteenth century. Scientists and Swindlers introduces us to a new service of professionals: the consulting scientists. 
Lucier follows these entrepreneurial men of science on their wide - ranging commercial engagements from the shores of Nova Scotia to the coast of California and shows how their innovative work fueled the rapid growth of the American coal and oil industries and the rise of American geology and chemistry. Along the way, he explores the decisive battles over expertise and authority, the high-stakes court cases over patenting research, the intriguing and often humorous exploits of swindlers, and the profound ethical challenges of doing science for money. Starting with the small surveying businesses of the 1830s and reaching to the origins of applied science in the 1880s, Lucier recounts the complex and curious relations that evolved as geologists, chemists, capitalists, and politicians worked to establish scientific research as a legitimate, regularly compensated, and respected enterprise. This sweeping narrative enriches our understanding of how the rocks beneath our feet became invaluable resources for science, technology, and industry." Reviews"Scientists and Swindlers is a model of how the history of science and technology ought to be done. Paul Lucier weaves an exciting and original narrative about geology's relations with commerce in the nineteenth century. He shows us how geologists' efforts to classify and understand their materials interdigitated with entrepreneurial ambitions, how expertise and pretensions of science intersected with the needs of commerce and law, and how geologists struggled to define and walk a line between the ethics of an aspiring professional and the ethics of a marketplace. Lucier enriches our understanding of geology's history while giving us a new appreciation of the continuities between the nineteenth century and our own era of commercialized science. His book prompts pleasure and reflection."
"In a remarkable piece of historical detective work, Paul Lucier shows how the search for coal, oil, and other resources that led to the industrial transformation of America also fueled the development of the modern scientific career. Filled with surprising stories and extraordinary characters, Scientists and Swindlers offers a fresh perspective on the troubled relations between commerce and intellectual life we face today."
"Paul Lucier has written an insightful study of scientific consulting practices that integrates business, geology, and environmental issues with the larger context of the early history of the American "fossil fuels" industry."
"The historian Paul Lucier puts ... moral, sociological, and chronological assumptions to the test in this remarkable groundbreaking study of relations between American earth scientists and the burgeoning mining industries of the nineteenth century. Reaching back to earlier legal cases and moral ambiguity wherein scientific consultants were employed to prospect for valuable mineral resources, Lucier deftly relocates and literally grounds the debate about how and whether money corrupts science."
"This book is not just a pleasure to read, but also of great scholarly significance. The two things in a single volume do not happen very often....The pleasure in reading this book arises not just from Lucier's enjoyable style, but also from the beautiful design and superior production of the book itself. High quality paper, generous margins, and numerous interesting and well chosen pictures and graphs are all there. But it's not just the fingers and the eyes which feel good during reading. The ears do as well: at one point we break into song! But when all is said and done, this book is remarkable for scholarly rather than purely aesthetic reasons."
"This is an important book."
"In this fascinating and detailed narrative, Paul Lucier provides the scientific and commercial context for understanding [the] launch [of] the age of petroleum."
"Lucier employs a wonderful assortment of visual materials from [consulting] reports and other mineralogical diagrams. He also provides long excerpts from court transcripts that allow readers to see representations of each perspective of the era. By prioritizing these primary sources Scientists and Swindlers becomes an essential reference for readers in the history of science - particularly chemistry."
"Beginning with a witty paraphrase of Jane Austen - 'It is a truth universally acknowledged that a scientist in possession of experience and expertise must be in search of funding,' Lucier shows how 19th -century geologists in the United States and Canada financed their work. Most of them were not independently wealthy, so they became, as Lucier puts it, 'scientific entrepreneurs.'"
"Scientists and Swindlers is a valuable addition to our understanding of scientific practice in America. Lucier's work answers much and raises interesting questions. That makes it a worthy read."
"In his gracefully written and well-researched study, Scientists & Swindlers, Paul Lucier examines the role that science played in nineteenth-century North American culture."
"Paul Lucier...presents us with a fascinating and very detailed picture of the men involved with the development of coal and oil in North America in the period from 1820 to 1890....The book will be of particular interest to legal historians and individuals interested in patents, because of its detailed examination of important early court cases. For scholars interested in mineral discovery and their evolving uses, there is also much to recommend the book....The business history aspect is also interesting, since many of the players were entrepreneurs or investors in coal and oil-related enterprises."
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