seams which lay there. His work set the stage for a mining boom in the area, where he invested in land along the Midland Trail in Fayette County in what became the new state of West Virginia in 1863 during the American Civil War (1861–65). A protégé of Ansted, William Nelson Page (1854–1932), became a leading industrialist and developer of iron furnaces, coal mines and railroads in the area, leading and managing such enterprises as the Victoria Furnace in Goshen, Virginia and the Gauley Mountain Coal Company for absentee investors, many of whom were based overseas in the United Kingdom. Ansted collaborated with numerous scientists of the period and like many others he entered into a correspondence with Charles Darwin in about 1860. Personal life Ansted married Augusta Dorothea Hackett (1828-1897), daughter of Alexander Baillie on 24 June 1848 and they had six children. Ansted died at Melton near Woodbridge, Suffolk, on 13 May 1880. He is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, London. Legacy The town of Ansted in Fayette County, West Virginia, was named in his honour in 1873. See also William N. Page Ansted, West Virginia Winding Gulf Coalfield References External links The Applications of Geology to the Arts and Manufactures (1865) The great stone book of nature (1863) Scenery, science and art; being extracts from the note-book of a geologist and mining engineer (1854) An elementary course of geology, mineralogy, and physical geography (1850) The gold-seeker's manual (1849) Geology, introductory, descriptive, & practical (1844) Volume 1 Volume 2 1814 births 1880 deaths 19th-century British geologists English mining engineers Alumni of Jesus College, Cambridge Fellows of the Royal Society Academics of King's College London British East India Company civil servants Scientists from London