This MedLibrary.org supplementary page on Wernerian Natural History Society is provided directly from the open source Wikipedia as a service to our readers. Please see the note below on authorship of this content, as well as the Wikipedia usage guidelines. To search for other content from our encyclopedia supplement, please use the form below:
Related Sponsors
The Wernerian Natural History Society (January 12, 1808 - April 16, 1858), commonly abbreviated as the Wernerian Society, was a learned society interested in the broad field of natural history, and saw papers presented on various topics such as mineralogy, plants, insects, and scholarly expeditions. The Society was an off-shoot of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and from its beginnings it was a rather elite organization.
The Society was named after Abraham Gottlob Werner, a German geologist who was a creator of Neptunism, a theory of superposition based on a receding primordial ocean that had deposited all the rocks in the crust.1. At this time all rocks, including basalt, and crystalline substances were thought by some to be precipitated from solution 2
Contents |
History
Robert Jameson, Regius Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh, was the founder and life president of the Society.
In 1800, he had spent a year at the mining academy in Freiberg, Saxony, where he had studied under Werner. The Society was founded on January 12, 1808, and the first meeting of the Society occurred on March 2, 1808 3Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag. The Society hosted many of the notable scientists of its day.
Decline
There were no meetings from 1850-1856, which coincided with the decline of Jameson himself. It was eventually decided to close the Society down and dispose of its assets, and on April 16, 1858 it closed for good. 1 3
Letters
Members of the Wernerian Society were entitled to use the abbreviation M.W.S. after their name.
List of Founding Members
Founding Members as of January 12, 18084
Honourary
- Abraham Gottlob Werner
- Joseph Banks, President, Royal Society
- Richard Kirwan, President, Royal Irish Academy
Resident
- Robert Jameson, Professor of Natural History, University of Edinburgh
- William Wright (botanist)
- Thomas Macknight
- John Barclay (anatomist)
- Thomas Thomson
- Stewart Murray Fullarton (a.k.a Fullerton)
- Charles Anderson
- Partick Walker
- Partick Neill (Secretary 1808-1849) 5
Notes and references
- ^ a b [1] Scholarly Societies Project: Wernerian Natural History Society
- ^ [2] Navigational Aids for the History of Science, Technology & the Environment: Records of the Wernerian Natural History Society
- ^ a b Sweet, Jessie M. The Wernerian Natural History Society in Edinburgh. Freiberger Forschungshefte, Reihe C (1967) 223: 205-218
- ^ [3] Memoirs of the Wernerian Natural History Society Vol. 1 for the years 1808,-9,-10.
- ^ [4] National Library of Scotland: Scottish Book Trade Index
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 28 March 2008, at 04:51.
Wikipedia Authorship and Review
Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.
Wikipedia Usage Guidelines
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Wernerian Natural History Society".
The URL for this specific entry is:
All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.