Author Archives: BSL
Georges Cuvier (1769-1832)
Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere schoolboys to old Aristotle. …–Charles Darwin, 1882 Georges … Continue reading
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William Smith
William Smith is a remarkable figure in the history of natural science because of the significance of his discoveries and the slow pace of the acceptance of his ideas. He is know known as the “Father of English Geology,” yet … Continue reading
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Étienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire (1772-1844)
The external world is all-powerful in alteration of the form of organized bodies . . . these [modifications] are inherited, and they influence all the rest of the organization of the animal, because if these modifications lead to injurious effects, … Continue reading
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Adam Sedgwick (1785-1873)
I cannot promise to teach you all geology, I can only fire your imaginations. –a comment from Sedgwick’s lecture notes Adam Sedgwick was a Cambridge-educated geologist who reshaped the study of this science by emphasizing research on rock strata and … Continue reading
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John D. Godman (1794-1830)
From A Memoir of . . . Dr. John D. Godman (Philadelphia, 1859): [His] essays are not inferior in poetical beauty, and vivid and accurate description, to the celebrated letters of Gilbert White on the natural history of Selbourne. He came … Continue reading
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Louis Agassiz (1807-73)
I have devoted my whole life to the study of Nature, and yet a single sentence may express all that I have done. I have shown that there is a correspondence between the succession of Fishes in geological times and … Continue reading
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Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin was perhaps the naturalist most responsible for altering humanity’s view of nature (and human nature) over the past two centuries. Darwin’s main idea was not new, nor was it complete, but his belief that species evolved over time … Continue reading
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Tagged Charles Darwin, Erasmus Darwin, evolution, science
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Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau’s Walden is the ur-text of American nature writing. Many earlier American explorers, naturalists, and authors had described the natural wonders of the new continent, but until Thoreau, no author had located “nature” at the center of one vision of … Continue reading
Posted in Natural Historians
Tagged America, natural history, nature writing, prose
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Spencer F. Baird
Jennifer Lindbeck, Class of ’98 Dickinson College, and Ashton Nichols, Department of English Spencer Fullerton Baird was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1823. He attended West Nottingham Academy near Port Deposit, Maryland. He entered Dickinson College at the age … Continue reading
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John Dyer
John Dyer was a Welsh painter and poet who is often seen as a naturalistic forerunner of Wordsworth. Although primarily known for one loco-descriptive poem, “Grongar Hill,” he is important for the careful and acurate observation evident throughout his works … Continue reading
Posted in Literary Figures
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