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12661 results in History of science

Page 51 of 634

An Account of Experiments to Determine the Figure of the Earth by Means of the Pendulum Vibrating Seconds in Different Latitudes
  • As Well As on Various Other Subjects of Philosophical Inquiry
  • Edward Sabine
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    06 February 2014
    First published in:
    1825
  • As early as the seventeenth century, scientists realised that a pendulum swings more slowly at the equator than it would at the North Pole. Newton predicted that gravity increased with latitude, and that the Earth could not be perfectly spherical. Although various experiments were undertaken to determine the exact degree of this ellipticity, none proved successful until physicist Edward Sabine (1788–1883) embarked on a series of expeditions across the world. Based on pendulum measurements from a wide range of latitudes, from Jamaica to Spitsbergen, his results were very different to mathematical predictions, and far more accurate; Charles Babbage would even complain that they were too good to be true. In this account, which first appeared in 1825, Sabine explains his methodology and presents his findings. His book opens a fascinating window into nineteenth-century geodesy for students in the history of science.

The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences
  • Founded upon their History
  • Volume 2
  • William Whewell
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    02 January 2014
  • First published in 1840, this two-volume treatise by Cambridge polymath William Whewell (1794–1886) remains significant in the philosophy of science. The work was intended as the 'moral' to his three-volume History of the Inductive Sciences (1837), which is also reissued in this series. Building on philosophical foundations laid by Immanuel Kant and Francis Bacon, Whewell opens with the aphorism 'Man is the Interpreter of Nature, Science the right interpretation'. Volume 2 contains the final sections of Part 1, addressing namely the philosophy of biology and palaetiology. Part 2, 'Of Knowledge', includes a selective review of opinions on the nature of knowledge and the means of seeking it, beginning with Plato. Whewell's work upholds throughout his belief that the mind was active and not merely a passive receiver of knowledge from the world. A key text in Victorian epistemological debates, notably challenged by John Stuart Mill and his System of Logic, Whewell's treatise merits continued study and discussion in the present day.

Fossils of All Kinds
  • Digested into a Method, Suitable to their Mutual Relation and Affinity
  • John Woodward
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    20 March 2014
  • To the naturalist John Woodward (c.1665–1728), fossils were 'much neglected, and left wholly to the Care and Treatment of Miners and meer Mechanicks'. He had built up a large personal collection of these samples of the Earth's petrified remains and spent much of his life developing a system for their classification, the results of which were published in this important illustrated work of 1728. A distinguished physician and a fellow of the Royal Society, Woodward wrote extensively on scientific topics, and had developed a theory that fossils were creatures destroyed in the flood described in the Bible. These ideas attracted critics and supporters in equal measure, but his contribution to techniques of fossil collection and classification were influential. In the present work, he devotes the early chapters to questions of description and classification, while the later sections contain some of his letters to his scientific contemporaries, including Isaac Newton.

Observations on Man
  • His Frame, his Duty, and his Expectations
  • Volume 1
  • David Hartley
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    31 October 2013
  • The orphaned son of an Anglican clergyman, David Hartley (1705–57) was originally destined for holy orders. Declining to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles, he turned to medicine and science yet remained a religious believer. This, his most significant work, provides a rigorous analysis of human nature, blending philosophy, psychology and theology. First published in two volumes in 1749, Observations on Man is notable for being based on the doctrine of the association of ideas. It greatly influenced scientists, theologians, social reformers and poets: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who named his eldest son after Hartley, had his portrait painted while holding a copy. In Volume 1, Hartley utilises Newtonian science in his observations. He presents a theory of 'vibrations', explaining how the elements of the nerves and brain interact as a result of stimulation, creating 'associations' and emotions.

A Selection of the Correspondence of Linnaeus, and Other Naturalists
  • From the Original Manuscripts
  • Volume 1
  • Edited by James Edward Smith
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    20 March 2014
  • After the death of the younger Carl Linnaeus in 1783, the entirety of the Linnean collections, including the letters received by the elder Linnaeus from naturalists all over Europe, was purchased by the English botanist James Edward Smith (1759–1828), later co-founder and first president of the Linnean Society of London. In 1821, Smith published this two-volume selection of the letters exchanged by Linnaeus père et fils and many of the leading figures in the study of natural history, revealing some of the close ties of shared knowledge and affection that bound the European scientific community at that time. Where necessary, Smith translates the letters into English, with the exception of those written in French, which are presented in the original. Volume 1 illuminates the epistolary relationships of Linnaeus senior with Peter Collinson, John Ellis and Alexander Garden, providing a very brief biography of each. Garden's letters to Ellis also feature prominently.

Flora atlantica
  • Sive historia plantarum quae in Atlante, agro Tunetano et Algeriensi crescunt
  • Volume 2
  • René Louiche Desfontaines
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    05 September 2013
    First published in:
    1798
  • A member, and later president, of the Académie des Sciences, French botanist and doctor René Louiche Desfontaines (1750–1833) spent the years 1783–5 on an expedition to North Africa. During his time in Tunisia and Algeria, he collected over a thousand plant specimens: more than three hundred genera were new to European naturalists at this time. Having succeeded Le Monnier in the chair of botany at the Jardin du Roi in 1786, Desfontaines helped found the Institut de France following the Revolution and published his two-volume Flora atlantica in Latin in 1798–9. A lavishly illustrated second edition appeared in four volumes in 1800. Combining its two volumes of plates into one, this reissue will give modern researchers an insight into the promulgation of pioneering plant science. Volume 2 contains classes 14 to 24 in the Linnaean system of plant taxonomy, from Didynamia to Cryptogamia.

Flora atlantica
  • Sive historia plantarum quae in Atlante, agro Tunetano et Algeriensi crescunt
  • Volume 3, Plates
  • René Louiche Desfontaines
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    05 September 2013
    First published in:
    1798
  • A member, and later president, of the Académie des Sciences, French botanist and doctor René Louiche Desfontaines (1750–1833) spent the years 1783–5 on an expedition to North Africa. During his time in Tunisia and Algeria, he collected over a thousand plant specimens: more than three hundred genera were new to European naturalists at this time. Having succeeded Le Monnier in the chair of botany at the Jardin du Roi in 1786, Desfontaines helped found the Institut de France following the Revolution and published his two-volume Flora atlantica in Latin in 1798–9. A lavishly illustrated second edition appeared in four volumes in 1800. Combining its two volumes of plates into one, this reissue will give modern researchers an insight into the promulgation of pioneering plant science. Volume 3 brings together all 261 line engravings from the volumes that accompanied the botanical catalogue.

Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertèbres
  • Volume 6
  • Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet de Lamarck
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    06 May 2013
    First published in:
    1819
  • Best known for his ideas relating to evolution, French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829) first built his reputation as a botanist and was elected to the prestigious Académie des Sciences in 1779. His career took a new turn in 1793 when he was made professor of 'insects, worms and microscopic animals' at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, although he lacked prior knowledge of the subject area. Undaunted, Lamarck set out to classify organisms which few naturalists had considered worthy of study since Linnaeus. He was the first to distinguish vertebrates from 'invertebrates' - a term he coined - by the presence of a vertebral column. In this groundbreaking seven-volume work, published between 1815 and 1822, he arranges invertebrates into twelve classes, laying the foundations for the modern study of these organisms. Volume 6, published in two parts between 1819 and 1822 (reissued here together), continues with the study of conchifera and covers molluscs.

Conversations on Vegetable Physiology
  • Comprehending the Elements of Botany, with their Application to Agriculture
  • Volume 1
  • Jane Haldimand Marcet
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    21 November 2013
  • Jane Haldimand Marcet (1769–1858) wrote across a range of topics, from natural philosophy to political economy. Her educational books were especially intended for female students, to combat the prevalent idea that science and economics were unsuitable for women, but they found broader popularity: Michael Faraday, as a young bookbinder's apprentice, credited Marcet with introducing him to electrochemistry. This two-volume work, first published in 1829, is a beginner's guide to botany. Since the chief aim was accessibility, Marcet does not dwell on the often burdensome process of plant classification, but focuses on plant forms and botany's practical applications. She presents the facts in the form of simple conversations between two students and their teacher. Based on the lectures of the Swiss botanist Candolle, Volume 1 introduces roots, leaves, sap, and the effects of different soil and air.

Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air
  • Volume 3
  • Joseph Priestley
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    05 September 2013
  • By the late eighteenth century, scientists had discovered certain types of gas, such as 'fixed air' (carbon dioxide), but their composition was little understood. Relatively few investigations into gases had taken place, and so the polymath Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) was able to make major breakthroughs in the field using a range of experimental techniques. While living near a brewery, he found that it was possible to outline the shape of the gas above fermenting beer with smoke, and that fire would burn with varying strength depending on the composition of the air. This three-volume collection first appeared between 1774 and 1777. Priestley acknowledges that Volume 3 (1777) would more greatly interest those with technical training in the physical sciences as compared with general scholars. It also highlights some new and important inferences, notably on the function of blood in respiration.

Recent Progress in the Study of Variation, Heredity, and Evolution
  • Robert Heath Lock
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    06 June 2013
    First published in:
    1906
  • In the nineteenth century and beyond, scientists at Cambridge produced some of the most significant developments in the study of biological variation and inheritance. The work of William Bateson (several of whose books are also reissued in this series) was especially important in this regard. This book, first published in 1906 by the botanist Robert Heath Lock (1879–1915), lucidly traces these and other milestones in modern biological understanding. A readable account is given of the evolution of the discipline since the publication of Darwin's On the Origins of Species in 1859, taking in the biometrical contributions of Francis Galton and the research into mutation conducted by Hugo de Vries. The pioneering experiments of Gregor Mendel, and the more recent rediscovery of his laws of inheritance, are clearly contextualised so that non-specialist readers can appreciate the scientific progress that had been made in the half-century prior to the book's first publication.

Conversations on Vegetable Physiology
  • Comprehending the Elements of Botany, with their Application to Agriculture
  • Volume 2
  • Jane Haldimand Marcet
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    21 November 2013
  • Jane Haldimand Marcet (1769–1858) wrote across a range of topics, from natural philosophy to political economy. Her educational books were especially intended for female students, to combat the prevalent idea that science and economics were unsuitable for women, but they found broader popularity: Michael Faraday, as a young bookbinder's apprentice, credited Marcet with introducing him to electrochemistry. This two-volume work, first published in 1829, is a beginner's guide to botany. Since the chief aim was accessibility, Marcet does not dwell on the often burdensome process of plant classification, but focuses on plant forms and botany's practical applications. She presents the facts in the form of simple conversations between two students and their teacher. Based on the lectures of the Swiss botanist Candolle, Volume 2 considers agriculture and plant diseases, the cultivation of trees and culinary vegetables, and the effects of humans on flora.

Conversations on Natural Philosophy
  • In Which the Elements of that Science Are Familiarly Explained and Adapted to the Comprehension of Young Pupils
  • Jane Haldimand Marcet
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    23 January 2014
  • An author of educational works intended especially for young women, Jane Haldimand Marcet (1769–1858) sought to combat the notion that technical topics were unsuitable for female students. Inspired by conversations with the famous scientists she entertained, she wrote textbooks in the lively form of discussions between a teacher and her two female pupils. Published anonymously at first, they found broad popularity: Michael Faraday, as a young bookbinder's apprentice, credited Marcet with introducing him to electrochemistry. The present work, an introduction to physics, astronomy and the properties of matter, sound and light, was Marcet's first, though it remained unpublished until 1819. Her other works include Conversations on Chemistry (1805), Conversations on Political Economy (1816) and Conversations on Vegetable Physiology (1829), all of which are reissued in this series. Never professing to be original, Marcet's work is noted nonetheless for its thoroughness and clear presentation of concepts.

Sundials and Roses of Yesterday
  • Garden Delights Which Are Here Displayed in Every Truth and Are Moreover Regarded as Emblems
  • Alice Morse Earle
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    19 September 2013
  • The American social historian and antiquarian Alice Morse Earle (1851–1911) published this lavishly illustrated book, among the last of her works, in 1902. By this time she had developed a distinctive style of historical writing which made innovative use of material evidence in its focus on the details of everyday life. She was particularly interested in family and society in colonial America, and her views about the importance of ancestry were reflected in her membership of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Her fascination for beautiful things found lively expression in this learned and charming exploration of two 'garden delights'. Drawing readily on folklore, literature and anecdote, Earle brings to life her history of sundials and roses in Europe and America, touching on practical, aesthetic and symbolic aspects.

Exposition méthodique des genres de l'ordre des polypiers
  • Avec leur description et celle des principales espèces, figurées dans 84 planches, les 63 premières appartenant à l'histoire naturelle des zoophytes d'Ellis et Solander
  • Jean Vincent Félix Lamouroux
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    20 February 2014
  • A professor of natural history at Caen and a member of the Académie des Sciences, Jean Vincent Félix Lamouroux (1779–1825) made significant contributions to the field of marine biology. Following the appearance in 1816 of his Histoire des polypiers corralligènes flexibles, he published in 1821 the present work, drawing upon John Ellis and Daniel Solander's seminal Natural History of Many Curious and Uncommon Zoophytes (1786). It divides more than 130 genera known at the time into twenty groupings. Taxonomy has progressed considerably since Lamouroux's day, yet this work, complete with eighty-four exquisitely drawn plates, serves to illuminate the contemporary understanding and classification of some remarkable marine organisms, principally those which take the form of polyps, such as corals. Moreover, a copy of this work is known to have been consulted by Charles Darwin aboard the Beagle on his famous voyage of discovery the following decade.

The Tourist's Flora
  • A Descriptive Catalogue of the Flowering Plants and Ferns of the British Islands, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and the Italian Islands
  • Jospeh Woods
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    22 August 2013
  • By the middle of the nineteenth century, botany was a popular amateur pursuit as well as a rapidly developing science. First published in 1850, this catalogue covers the flora of Britain, France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy - the most popular tourist destinations of the period. It was compiled over several years by Joseph Woods (1776–1864), who was an architect by profession but also an avid botanist and contributor to the Transactions of the Linnean Society. Taking care to clearly define his terms in the still-developing botanical lexicon, Woods includes hundreds of entries and technical descriptions. A testament to the contemporary market for scholarly amateur guides, this rigorous publication is the product of the author's lifelong interest and a retirement devoted to painstaking study. It remains an instructive resource for those interested in the history and dissemination of plant science.

A Sketch of the Life and Writings of Robert Knox, the Anatomist
  • Henry Lonsdale
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    05 September 2013
  • Among the ablest anatomical teachers of his day, Robert Knox (1791–1862) also busied himself with the study of zoology and ethnology. Prepared by his pupil and colleague Henry Lonsdale (1816–76), this 1870 biography explores the scope of Knox's scientific research and the nature of his character. It describes how Knox developed at Edinburgh one of the most significant anatomical schools in Britain, playing a dominant role in expanding the comparative anatomy collection held by the city's Royal College of Surgeons. Despite his eminence and popularity as a lecturer, his reputation was deeply tarnished by his association with the notorious murderers Hare and Burke, who had provided Knox with bodies for dissection. Drawing on surviving correspondence and information gathered from friends and colleagues, Lonsdale's work stands as a robust defence and sympathetic portrait of a prominent yet controversial figure in the history of nineteenth-century medicine.

On the Growth of Plants in Closely Glazed Cases
  • Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    22 August 2013
    First published in:
    1842
  • In the early nineteenth century, live plant cuttings were commonly transported between continents in wooden boxes exposed to the elements on the decks of ships; unsurprisingly, it was rare for them to arrive in good health. The glass cases devised by Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward (1791–1868) were a revolutionary step forward in preserving botanical specimens. In this monograph, first published in 1842, Ward explores some of the most common causes of plant deaths in cities and aboard ships, including air quality and temperature. Most importantly, he emphasises the need for light. Although photosynthesis would not be chemically understood until later that century, Ward recognised that a glass case was infinitely preferable to an opaque one. His rapidly adopted invention would have far-reaching effects, allowing for the safe transportation of tea from China to the Himalayas, rubber from the Amazon and medicinal species from the Andes to India.

Papers, Literary, Scientific, Etc.
  • Volume 1
  • Fleeming Jenkin
  • Edited by Sidney Colvin, J. A. Ewing
  • Introduction by Robert Louis Stevenson
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    02 January 2014
  • An electrical engineer, university teacher and wide-ranging writer, Fleeming Jenkin (1833–85) filed thirty-five British patents in the course of his career. Edited by Sidney Colvin (1845–1927) and J. A. Ewing (1855–1935) and first published in 1887, this two-volume work brings together a selection of Jenkin's varied and engaging papers. The collection ranges from notes on his voyages as a marine telegraph engineer, to a critical review of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, essays on literature, and thoughts on technical education. A memoir written by Robert Louis Stevenson, his former student, provides biographical context and attests to Jenkin's many interests and talents across the arts and sciences. Volume 1 begins with Stevenson's memoir, incorporating Jenkin's records of his voyages. This is followed by writings on literature and drama. Three pieces on scientific subjects, including the review of Darwin, conclude the volume.

Observations on Man
  • His Frame, his Duty, and his Expectations
  • Volume 2
  • David Hartley
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    31 October 2013
  • The orphaned son of an Anglican clergyman, David Hartley (1705–57) was originally destined for holy orders. Declining to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles, he turned to medicine and science yet remained a religious believer. This, his most significant work, provides a rigorous analysis of human nature, blending philosophy, psychology and theology. First published in two volumes in 1749, Observations on Man is notable for being based on the doctrine of the association of ideas. It greatly influenced scientists, theologians, social reformers and poets: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who named his eldest son after Hartley, had his portrait painted while holding a copy. Volume 2 is particularly concerned with human morality and the duty and expectations of mankind. Here the author is keen to show that scientific observation is not necessarily in conflict with religious conviction.

Page 51 of 634