BANGOR – Richard Judd and Edward “Zip” Kellogg will talk about their new book at 2 p.m. Saturday, April 15, at the Bangor Public Library, 145 Harlow St. Judd wrote the essay and Kellogg the photo captions for “Ktaadn Trails: Lucius Merrill and the Paths to Katahdin,” published by the library.

Merrill, professor of geology and chemistry at the University of Maine, took the nearly 50 photographs in the book on journeys to Maine’s highest mountain in 1892 and 1894.

He gave the photographs to colleague H. Walter Leavitt, an engineering professor at UMaine and secretary of the Maine Technology Experiment Station for many years. Leavitt’s son, Lawrence, donated the glass negatives to Bangor Public Library.

Mount Katahdin has been captured on camera innumerable times – even in color. But there’s something about a black-and-white image and the majesty surrounding a lone figure standing on an angled boulder, wearing suit and hat and beard.

Merrill photographed Katahdin from a variety of perspectives, near and far. Many of the pictures show people, probably from Merrill’s party.

There’s “Grover with fish” and “Washburn with fish,” each displaying a catch of small trout at Bell Camp, a lumber camp on the Wassataquoik Stream. Other photos show women in long dresses on the porch of “Camp at Kukunsook.”

There’s a shot of “Old David Malcolm sitting on a pile of wood, sorting blueberries” – at the end of September, no less. In the background some of the trees, bare and dead, are probably evidence of the 1884 fire, Kellogg believes.

Judd dips into a variety of writings in his essay about Katahdin, including newspapers of a century ago and more. In the second half of the 19th century, fewer than 50 people a year climbed the mountain, he points out.

“The common theme in these early accounts is Katahdin’s inaccessibility, a prospect that kept the mountain clothed in obscurity despite its stature as one of New England’s highest peaks and despite the burgeoning tourist trade to the south in Maine,” Judd wrote.

The first “recorded ascent,” in 1804, involved William Howe, Amos Patten, Samuel Call and William Rice of Bangor; Richard Winslow of Old Town; Charles Turner Jr. of Scituate, Mass.; and two Penobscot guides.

“Ktaadn Trails” is available for $18.95 plus tax from the Bangor Public Library.