The explorer and multi-disciplinary scientist Alexander von Humboldt (1769 1859) was a prominent figure in the European scientific community of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the first to make a scientific survey of South and Central America. His travels alone brought him widespread recognition, but the extensive field notes and research he undertook were developed further on his return. Originally published in French and translated in 1823, this work brought his geological speculations to a British audience. Humboldt explores the positioning of different types of rocks across...

Sir Henry Thomas de la Beche (1796 1855) was a talented and influential geologist. A friend of Mary Anning, he produced the famous lithograph Duria antiquior (1830), the first reconstruction of a scene from an ancient world, to support her work. He promoted government involvement in geology and became the founding Director of the British Geological Survey, which was officially recognised in 1835. Inspired by his work in Cornwall, he later founded the Royal School of Mines and the Museum of Practical Geology. Among his published works was a Manual of Geology (1831), which went through three...

Despite never graduating from university, Sir Archibald Geikie (1835 1924) forged an exceptionally successful scientific career. In 1855 he was appointed to the Scottish branch of the Geological Survey, and by 1882 was Director General of the Survey. In keeping with his Edinburgh beginnings, most of his career was spent studying igneous rocks. He was a prolific and gifted writer, producing textbooks, popular science books and biographical and historical works, including the influential Founders of Geology (1897), as well as numerous technical publications. The only geologist to hold the post...

Alexander von Humboldt (1769 1859), 'the greatest scientific traveller who ever lived' according to Darwin, made groundbreaking contributions to the fields of geography, oceanography, climatology and ecology. In 1804, he returned from a five-year exploration of Latin America with an incredible wealth of specimens and data which provided the foundations for his theories on the natural order. He expounds them in this book, which was printed in German in 1808 before being translated by the geographer Jean-Baptiste Benoit Eyries (1767 1846) and published in French in 1828. Humboldt does more than...

Early nineteenth-century farmers often sowed their crops on an arbitrarily chosen day every year. Impatient with this practice, naturalist Joseph Taylor (c.1761 1844) presents an alternative method in this work, which first appeared in 1812. He argues that by studying the atmosphere, the behaviour of animals and the condition of local flora, a farmer can not only determine the optimal time for sowing, but also forecast the weather. Including the Shepherd of Banbury's famous rules for judging changes in the weather, alongside remarks on the quality of this wisdom, Taylor's book also draws on a...

Two of the most important scientific works published in the aftermath of the devastating 1755 Lisbon earthquake.

Geologist and seismologist Richard Dixon Oldham (1858 1936) is best known for making two fundamental discoveries: in 1900 he identified primary, secondary and tertiary seismic waves, and in 1906 he presented evidence for the existence of the Earth's core. A fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, the Geological Society of London and the Royal Society, Oldham spent a large part of his career in Asia. Involved in the Geological Survey of India for twenty-five years, he played a key role in the development of geological research in the region (his revised Manual of the Geology in India is also...

Cornwall has one of the oldest mining histories in Europe. At one time, the county was a leading producer of tin, with over 2,000 mines in operation, but competition from overseas saw the boom years of the mid-nineteenth century give way to steady decline. Brenton Symons (1832 c.1908), an experienced mining engineer and metallurgist, firmly believed that the mineral wealth of Cornwall was far from exhausted and that careful application of financial investment and skilled personnel could boost the county's prosperity. This illustrated monograph, published in 1884, is his account of Cornwall's...

The Scottish geologist Sir Roderick Impey Murchison (1792 1871) first proposed the Silurian period after studying ancient rocks in Wales in the 1830s. Naming the sequence after the Silures, a Celtic tribe, he believed that the fossils representing the origins of life could be attributed to this period. This assertion sparked a heated dispute with his contemporary Adam Sedgwick, ultimately ruining their friendship. First published in 1854, Siluria is a significant reworking of Murchison's earlier book, The Silurian System, which had appeared in 1839. Thorough in his approach, he combines his...

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...