Rediscovering MILES ROCK A recently donated collection creates a snapshot of one of Lehigh’s first graduates—a naturalist, civil engineer and astronomer—and offers new research opportunities. S T O R Y B Y C H R I S T I N A T A T U • P H O T O I L L U S T R A T I O N S B Y B E T H M U R P H Y Miles Rock’s consequential life is meticulously cataloged in dozens of well-kept journals that still contain the plant clippings he pressed between pages filled with his neat, cursive handwriting. His Civil War uniform, its brass buttons embossed with eagles, is worn, though intact. The letters he wrote from the battlefields to friends and family offer moral advice and observations about 19th-century American life. His finely detailed surveys and maps of Mexico border territory and Guatemala that helped determine the disputed boundary between the countries are folded in a leather-bound book that bears his name and the year 1895. FA L L 2 0 2 2 | 3 1
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTA0OTQ5OA==