A natural history collection in transition: Wyville Thomson and the relationship between the University of Edinburgh and the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art

1999 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. N. Swinney
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Science And Art ◽  
Natural History Collection ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
The University ◽  
The Relationship

On some Type-specimens of Lepidoptera and Coleoptera in the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art

1897 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 326-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Percy Hall Grimshaw
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
New Genus ◽  
British Museum ◽  
Type Specimens ◽  
Histoire Naturelle ◽  
Science And Art ◽  
Natural History Collections ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
The University

The paper dealt with fifty-two species of butterflies and nineteen of beetles, the type-specimens of which had been discovered by the author in a collection purchased by the University of Edinburgh from M. Dufresne of Paris in the year 1819, and afterwards transferred to the Museum of Science and Art. In the case of the butterflies, the species referred to were described by Godart in the Encyclopédie Méthodique, while the beetles belonged to species described by Olivier in the same work, and also in his Histoire Naturelle des Insectes—Coléoptères, published about the same time. By the comparison of these original specimens with others in the Natural History Collections at the British Museum the author has been enabled to clear up many points in synonymy, etc., which have for nearly eighty years remained doubtful and obscure. The most important results of the investigations may be summarised as follows:—One of the beetles has been found by Mr Gahan, of the British Museum, to be the type of a new genus, which is characterised in the present paper, while the specimen upon which it is founded is probably unique; it has been found necessary to rename one species of butterfly and one beetle; errors in synonymy have been corrected in the case of nineteen species; and eight species hitherto wrongly placed have been referred to their proper genera.

Translation, Annotation and Knowledge-Making: Leopold von Buch's Travels through Norway and Lapland (1813)

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 323-341
Author(s):  
Alison E. Martin
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
The University ◽  
The Relationship

This paper sheds new light on the relationship between translation and annotation by adding the theoretical coordinate of expertise to the discussion about the ways in which translators contribute to the making of knowledge. It takes as its case study the German geologist Leopold von Buch's account of his scientific travels through Scandinavia, the Reise durch Norwegen und Lappland (Berlin: Nauck, 1810), which appeared in English three years later as the Travels through Norway and Lapland during the Years 1806, 1807 and 1808 (London: Colburn, 1813). It was translated by the Scottish journalist John Black, who added a handful of his own annotations, while a weightier footnote apparatus was appended by Robert Jameson, Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh. The paratextual material was not, however, meant merely to aid comprehension. Black's additions helped to vaunt his ‘practical’ expertise as a linguist and translator, while Jameson's additions repeatedly stressed his own ‘subject’ expertise as a specialist on the geology of Scotland and an ardent devotee of the German geologist Abraham Werner. These two sets of footnotes highlighted the tensions between transnational scientific knowledge-making and national, regional and individual agendas in nineteenth-century translation and annotation practice.

John Robertson Henderson (1863–1925): Scotland, India and anomuran taxonomy

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-75
Author(s):  
P. G. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Christian College ◽  
Apparent Absence ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
Marine Station ◽  
The University ◽  
Crustacean Taxonomy

John Robertson Henderson was born in Scotland and educated at the University of Edinburgh, where he qualified as a doctor. His interest in marine natural history was fostered at the Scottish Marine Station for Scientific Research at Granton (near Edinburgh) where his focus on anomuran crustaceans emerged, to the extent that he was eventually invited to compile the anomuran volume of the Challenger expedition reports. He left Scotland for India in autumn 1885 to take up the Chair of Zoology at Madras Christian College, shortly after its establishment. He continued working on crustacean taxonomy, producing substantial contributions to the field; returning to Scotland in retirement in 1919. The apparent absence of communication with Alfred William Alcock, a surgeon-naturalist with overlapping interests in India, is highlighted but not resolved.

scholarly journals 4. On some Congenital Deformities of the Human Skull

1866 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 444-449
Author(s):  
Wm. Turner
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Natural History Museum ◽  
The Other ◽  
History Museum ◽  
Human Skull ◽  
Congenital Deformities ◽  
Premature Closure ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
The University ◽  
Living Person

1st, Scaphocephalus.—After making reference to his previous papers, more especially to that in which he had described several specimens of the scaphocephalic skull, in which he had discussed the influence exercised on the production of deformities of the cranium, by a premature closure or obliteration of the sutures, and to the recent memoirs of Professor von Düben of Stockholm,† and Dr John Thurnam, the author proceeded to relate two additional cases of scaphocephalus to those he had already recorded. He had met with one of these in the head of a living person, the other in a skull in the Natural History Museum of the University of Edinburgh.

Marble Busts and Fish Fossils

Nuncius ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 439-483
Author(s):  
Elena Canadelli
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Museum Collections ◽  
The Public ◽  
Additional Information ◽  
Natural History Collection ◽  
Late 18Th Century ◽  
University Of Padua ◽  
The University

The historical catalogs of the museum collections contain a wealth of information for historians seeking to reconstruct their contents, how they were displayed and the ways in which they were used. This paper will present the complete transcription of a draft catalog that was prepared in 1797 for the Museum of Natural History and Antiquities of the University of Padua. Conserved in the university’s Museum of Geology and Paleontology, the catalog was the first to be compiled of the museum, which was established in 1733 thanks to the donation by Antonio Vallisneri Jr. of his father Antonio Vallisneri Sr.’s collection of antiquities and natural history. The catalog was compiled by the custodian of the museum, the herbalist and amateur naturalist Bartolomeo Fabris. It is of great interest because it provides a record of the number and nature of the pieces conserved in the museum at a time when natural history and archeology collections were still undivided. It also provides indications as to how such collections were arranged for display in the public halls of a university at the end of the eighteenth century. Based on this catalog, with additional information drawn from other manuscript and published sources and museum catalogs from the 1830s conserved in various institutes at the University of Padua, it is possible to reconstruct the contents and layout of a significant late 18th-century natural history collection.

2. On the Natural History of Lewis

1866 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 615-625 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duns
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
Indigenous Plants ◽  
Full Account ◽  
The People ◽  
Outer Hebrides ◽  
History Of ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
Moral Condition ◽  
The University

Comparatively little attention has been given to the natural history of Lewis. Stray notices of the geology, botany, and zoology of the Outer Hebrides are to be met with, but, with one or two exceptions, these are not of much value. Martin's “Description of the Western Islands (1703),” is chiefly interesting for its full account of the industrial and moral condition of the people. Little, however, can be made of his incidental references to the natural history of the islands. Two volumes on the “Economical History of the Hebrides,” by Rev. Dr Walker, Professor of Natural History in the University of Edinburgh, were published in 1808, after Dr Walker's death. This work contains a good deal of information on indigenous plants, but almost none on zoology. Dr Maculloch's “Description of the Western Islands of Scotland (3 vols., 1819)” is in every way an abler and better work than either of the two now named. Its notices of the geology and mineralogy of the Outer Hebrides are even still valuable.

II. Account of Sir George Clerk-Maxwell, Baronet

1788 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-56 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
Return Home ◽  
The University

Sir George Clerk-Maxwell of Pennycuik, Baronet, one of the Presidents of the Physical Class of this Society, was born at Edinburgh, on the last day of October 1715. He was the fourth son of Sir John Clerk of Pennycuik, one of the Barons of Exchequer in Scotland: His mother was a daughter of Sir James Inglis of Cramond.His more early studies were carried on at the University of Edinburgh, under the eye of his father, who was himself a man of letters, and from whom he appears very early to have caught a strong taste for Natural History, Antiquities and the Theory of Commerce, particularly in so far as these branches of knowledge related to his own country. He afterwards went to Leyden, where he finished his studies under the immediate inspection of the celebrated Boerhaave, who had been the friend of his father; and, before his return home, he visited several parts of France and Germany.

scholarly journals Art. XIX.—The Arabic, Syriac, and Hebrew Manuscripts in the Hunterian Library in the University of Glasgow

1899 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 739-756
Author(s):  
T. H. Weir
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Printed Books ◽  
Natural History Collection ◽  
The University ◽  
William Hunter

Dr. William Hunter (d. 1783) bequeathed to the University of Glasgow, along with his Natural History Collection, a library containing about twelve thousand volumes of printed books and six hundred manuscripts. The latter were catalogued by G. Haenel, in his Catalogi Librorum Manuscriptorum, Leipzig, 1830, columns 786–798. In regard to the Oriental manuscripts, however, he frequently does no more than state in what languages they are written, and that not always correctly. Thanks to the courtesy of the Keeper of the Museum, who gave every facility of access to the cases, the following is an emended list of the Arabic, Syriac, and Hebrew manuscripts. With the exception of No. 7, none of these is written on vellum.

Edinburgh and Paris

2019 ◽  
pp. 107-155
Author(s):  
Bill Jenkins
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Medical School ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Two Cities ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
The University ◽  
The Impact

Paris was the most important centre for evolutionary speculations in Europe in the early nineteenth century. Two of its most influential evolutionary thinkers, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire both worked there in the city’s Museum of Natural History. This chapter explores the impact of these French thinkers’ theories in Edinburgh and the close connections that existed between natural history circles in the two cities. It was common for students and graduates of the medical school of the University of Edinburgh to spend time studying in Paris, where they imbibed many of the exciting new ideas being discussed there. Two of the key figures discussed in this book, Robert Grant and Robert Knox, had both spent time in Paris and were deeply influenced by the theories they encountered there. The chapter also examines the impact of the key writings of Lamarck and Geoffroy in Edinburgh.

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