I don't know the original name (Don probably will...). The closest I have for 'MISSOURI GEOLOGICAL SURVEY' is Mephisto by Scriptorium, main difference on /L. Other options: Gable Antique Condensed, Webster, Acantha

Kudos! I'm sure Bauer Gable Antique was the basis for this. As it was just a single logo for printing the book spines, it appears to me that it was a custom made plate, since the letters are never identical, Thanks for your help.

Mephisto matches what Dan Solo shows as 'Washington Antique' in the Solotype Catalog. May or may not be the original name. Also available as 'Thuvia' by Michael Lee, who interestingly states in the ReadMe that he based the font on letters on the covers of some Edgar Rice Burroughs books.

I'd have to agree with Ryuk that Mephisto (Thuvia) is closest. Thuvia is easily found on the Web, but I don't find it on any reputable site I want to link to.

The name Thuvia is derived, of course from Burroughs' "Thuvia, Maid of Mars", one of the John Carter stories. Do a google search for thuvia images, and you'll find the book cover that must have inspired Lee.

But I think Ryuk nailed it with Bauer's Gable. As I noted above, the only uses for this font are on the book spine, and none of the letters are identical to one another (e,g, all 3 O's and both E's are different) which I assume to be inconsistent with any kind of manufactured type. My theory is that in 1894 someone at Tribune Printing designed a one-off plate for use on the spines and modeled it after the then-new Bauer Gable (which may have been available in an uncondensed version at that time). I ultimately did the same thing--tracing the image and having a magnesium engraving made.

Bauer's Gable is almost 100% identical to a font cut by Gustave F. Schroeder for the Central Type Foundry decades earlier, with three widths Lafayette, Jefferson and Washington.

AFAIK fonts were not usually used directly for book bindings before the 20th century. Your plate idea is not all that different from the original method of printing this binding.
Don

Correcting an error in an earlier post:
Webster is not a clone as such. Rather, it is a light weight version of Washington width.
Boston/Central was proud of the design for the Jefferson fonts and used them as the top featured fonts for its 1892 specimen book.
Don