The Marvels of Nature in Buffon and Rameau

2020 ◽  
pp. 27-80
Author(s):  
Tili Boon Cuillé
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
National Museum ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Special Effects ◽  
Histoire Naturelle ◽  
Scientific Curiosity ◽  
The Enlightenment

Taking Fontenelle’s famed comparison of nature to the opera somewhat literally, Chapter 1 considers the representation of natural phenomena in the Comte de Buffon’s Histoire naturelle and Jean-Philippe Rameau’s opera Zoroastre, which coincided in 1749. Lorraine Daston and Katherine Park have argued that wonder gave way to a more scientific curiosity in the Enlightenment. This chapter demonstrates that Buffon and Rameau to the contrary sought to sustain the wonder of the reader/spectator when confronted with natural marvels on the page and the stage. Wonder constituted the affective counterpart to encounters with the marvelous, which Rameau’s librettist Louis de Cahusac considered a defining feature of French tragic opera. The chapter likens plans for the improvement of special effects, the renovation of the opera, and the establishment of the National Museum of Natural History in the course of the century, designed to reconcile enlightenment and enchantment.

The palaeontological collection stored in the Department of Geology of the National Museum of Natural History NAS of Ukraine as a scientific heritage

Geo&Bio ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (17) ◽  
pp. 136-147
Author(s):  
Galina Anfimova ◽  
◽  
Volodymyr Grytsenko ◽  
Kateryna Derevska ◽  
Kseniia Rudenko ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
National Museum ◽  
Scientific Heritage

Ocotea dilcherii, a new name for Ocotea obtusifolia (Berry) LaMotte (Lauraceae)

Phytotaxa ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 239 (2) ◽  
pp. 199
Author(s):  
Sergei Vasilyevich Vikulin
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Type Specimen ◽  
Valid Species ◽  
Early Eocene ◽  
National Museum ◽  
Mississippi Embayment ◽  
Fossil Species ◽  
Early Oligocene ◽  
Leaf Remains ◽  
Nomen Novum

The fossil species  Oreodaphne obtusifolia Berry (1916: 301) was described, based on the fossil leaf remains of the most abundant laurel from the Early Eocene Wilcox Group sediments of Holly Springs: Marshall Co, Grenada Co., Miss.: Mississippi embayment (Southeastern North America). Nowadays, most systematists consider the extant Oreodaphne to be a member of Ocotea (Mez, 1889: 219; Rohwer, 1986; van der Werff, 2002; Chanderbali et al., 2001). LaMotte (1952) transferred Berry’s (1916: 301) combination to Ocotea, and this transfer was followed by Dilcher (1963), who reinforced attribution of Wilcox leaf megafossils to Ocotea by cuticular analysis of epidermis and stomata (Dilcher & Lott, 2005). However, according to Art. 53.1 of the ICN (McNeill et al.  2012) the name Ocotea obtusifolia (Berry) LaMotte (1952) is illegitimate because of the existence of the earlier overlooked homonym, Ocotea obtusifolia Kunth (1817: 165–166), an extant lauraceous species from Colombia (Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, holotype: http://plants.jstor.org/stable/10.5555/al.ap.specimen.P00128771). The homonymy between these fossil and extant American species of Ocotea was revealed during the description of the new fossil Early Oligocene species Ocotea rossica Vikulin from the south of the Middle-Russian upland (Vikulin, 2015: 326). Since Ocotea obtusifolia (Berry) LaMotte has been systematically recognized as a valid species in current use and it does not have any synonym, a nomen novum, O. dilcherii, is formally proposed here as a replaced name. Because a type specimen was not indicated among the validating illustrations of Berry (1916: pl. 80, fig. 1; pl. 83, fig. 2–5, and pl. 84, fig. 1 and 2), a lectotype must be designated here, from the specimens illustrated in the protologue (Berry, 1916: 301–302) amongst those perfect specimens with blunt leaf apex, which are very abundant in the clays at Puryear, Tenn. (Proposed lectotype: paleobotany collection # USNM 35867, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (USA), illustrated in Berry, 1916: 301, pl. 83, fig. 5.

scholarly journals A subfossil half-mandible of a Grey Seal

1995 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 253-256
Author(s):  
P.J.H. van Bree ◽  
D.P. Bosscha Erdbrink
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Short Description ◽  
National Museum ◽  
Grey Seal ◽  
Fossil Material

The fortuitous discovery, in the collections of the National Museum of Natural History at Leiden, of a probably subfossil right half-mandible of a Grey Seal is reported. A short description of the piece is given and it is compared with some other recent, subfossil and fossil material.

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