Richard Owen (1804 1892) was a contemporary of Darwin, and like him, attended the University of Edinburgh medical school but left without completing his training. His career as an outstanding palaeontologist began when he was cataloguing the Hunterian Collection of human and animal anatomical specimens which had passed to the Royal College of Surgeons in London. His public lectures on anatomy were attended by Darwin, and he was entrusted with the classification and description of the fossil vertebrates sent back by Darwin from the Beagle voyage. He was responsible for coining many of the...
Richard Owen (1804 1892) was a contemporary of Darwin, and like him, attended the University of Edinburgh medical school but left without completing h...
Sir Charles Lyell (1797 1875) is remembered today as much for his profound influence on the young Charles Darwin as for his own work as a geologist: Darwin read the three volumes of his Principles of Geology (1830 3) as they came out, and was greatly interested in Lyell's theory of the huge effects over geological time of an accumulation of tiny, almost unobservable changes. The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man was published in 1863, and went into three editions in that year alone. The work synthesises the then existing evidence for the earliest humans in Europe and North America...
Sir Charles Lyell (1797 1875) is remembered today as much for his profound influence on the young Charles Darwin as for his own work as a geologist: D...
This biography of John Ray, the seventeenth-century naturalist, was first published in 1942 at the height of the Second World War. It was written by Charles Raven, an eminent theologian who shared Ray's deep respect for intellectual integrity, honest exploration of the natural world, and the value of both theology and scientific endeavour. More than a superb history, this offers an opportunity to reassess the pivotal contributions of a brilliant but often undervalued scientist. Ray's major publications were written in Latin; Raven's linguistic skills coupled with his passion for natural...
This biography of John Ray, the seventeenth-century naturalist, was first published in 1942 at the height of the Second World War. It was written by C...
The development of Charles Darwin's views on evolution by natural selection has fascinated biologists since the 1859 publication of his landmark text On The Origin of Species. His experiences, observations and reflections during and after his pivotal journey on the Beagle during 1831 36 were of critical importance. Darwin was not, however, a man to be rushed. While his autobiography claims that the framework of his theory was laid down by 1839, its first outline sketch did not emerge until 1842. That essay was heavily edited, with many insertions and erasures. It formed the vital kernel of...
The development of Charles Darwin's views on evolution by natural selection has fascinated biologists since the 1859 publication of his landmark text ...
John Fleming (1785 1857) was a minister of the Church of Scotland, but in his time at the University of Edinburgh he had also studied geology and zoology. In the tradition of the country parson who was also a talented and knowledgeable naturalist, he published his first works on the geology of the Shetland Islands while serving there as a minister. His subsequent works led to his being offered the chair of natural philosophy at the University of Aberdeen, and subsequently at the newly created chair of natural history at the Free Church College in Edinburgh. The two-volume Philosophy of...
John Fleming (1785 1857) was a minister of the Church of Scotland, but in his time at the University of Edinburgh he had also studied geology and zool...
Sir Francis Bond Head (1793 1875) known as 'Galloping Head', was a soldier who later served as lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, but who was dismissed from his post when rebellion broke out there in 1837. Before this, he had tried unsuccessfully to set up a mining company in Argentina. It is from this period of his life that the characteristically entitled Rough Notes Taken During Some Rapid Journeys Across the Pampas and Among the Andes (published in 1826) were written, in a headlong and jocular style which belies the actual hardships of his journey. Part of the interest of the account...
Sir Francis Bond Head (1793 1875) known as 'Galloping Head', was a soldier who later served as lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, but who was dismis...
