Category Archives: Biography

Anthropology, Biography, History of Science, Museums

Thomas Huxley and the Return of the Rattlesnake Bones

March 12, 2011 Tim Jones Leave a comment

The Guardian this week reported on the UK Natural History Museum’s efforts to repatriate a collection of human bones, acquired by explorers in bygone years, to their original home with islanders in the Torres Straits.

Outrigger sailing canoe alongside "The Rattlesnake" (Fronticepiece to T.H. Huxley's Diary of the Voyagfe of H.M.S.Rattlesnake) — Outrigger sailing canoe alongside "The Rattlesnake" in the Louisiade Archipelago (Fronticepiece to T.H. Huxley's Diary of the Voyage of H.M.S.Rattlesnake)

It’s not a piece I’d linger over save for the mention of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, a 19th century survey ship involved in, among other duties, the collection of anthropological specimens. Moreover, the Assistant-Surgeon on the 1846-50 voyage was the young Thomas Henry Huxley, very much cutting his teeth in hands-on nature study and ethnography.

Self-Portrait, Thomas Huxley on H.M.S. Rattlesnake (Huxley's Rattlesnake diary)

Regular readers will know I’m quite a fan of the man later known as ‘Darwin’s Bulldog’, so any association with what we now recognise as unsavoury cultural violations demands a look-see.

Huxley worked alongside ship’s Surgeon Dr Thompson and Naturalist John MacGillivray, under the overall command of Captain Owen Stanley.

His Rattlesnake Diary, only published in 1935 by grandson Julian, captures thoughts and details of the voyage with a candour absent from more official reports.

The two diary entries that mention human artifacts, in this case a jaw bone bracelet, give some feel for the circumstances in which such pieces were obtained and the way Huxley spoke about the indigenous peoples.

And as we have Julian Huxley’s thoughts on his grandfather’s behaviour (via his editorial commentary), there’s an opportunity to compare the ethics and cultural norms in anthropology not only between the mid-nineteenth century (when the bones were collected) and the present day (manifest in the Natural History Museum’s repatriation efforts), but also with the norms prevailing in 1935.

Human Jaw Bracelet (MacGillivray, Narrative of the Voyage of the Rattlesnake)

On to the diary entries. In June 1849, with the Rattlesnake anchored among the islands of the Louisade Archipelago, Huxley describes an apparent overnight change in the local people’s willingness to barter a jaw bone ornament:

24th. Sunday [June 1849]

Huxley: “We had four or five canoes off to barter with us this morning – such squealing and shouting and laughing and yelling was never heard! One of the niggers had a human jaw by way of a bracelet. There was one tooth in the jaw and the circlet was completed by a smal bone apparently of some animal lashed to the coronoid process.

The old fellow would not part from it for love or money. Hatchets, looking-glasses, handkerchiefs, all were spurned and he seemed to think our attempts to get it rather absurd, turning to his fellows and jabbering, whereupon they all set up a great clamour, and laughed. Another jaw was seen soon in one of the canoes, so that it is possibly the custom there to ornament themselves with the memorials of friends or trophies of vanquished foes.” [Entry continues.]

Things have changed by the next day. Huxley doesn’t mention any additional enticements that might have been used to achieve this, although it’s clear from other parts of the diary that iron and tools were particularly valued:

25th. [Monday, June 1849]

Huxley: “Several canoes came off this morning; one of them brought the figure-head which was so much wanted yesterday, and bartered it immediately. In one of the canoes was a man with a jaw bracelet. The jaw was in fine preservation and evidently belonged to a young person, every tooth being entire. They seemed to have no scruple in selling it. A jade hatchet was procured from them also.” [Entry continues.]

The jaw is also mentioned in a more formal report by MacGillivray in his Narrative of The Voyage of H.M.S.Rattlesnake (2) (And from which the drawing of the jaw bone above is taken.)

MacGillivray: “…But the most curious bracelet, and by no means an uncommon one, is that made of a lower human jaw with one or more collar bones closing the upper side crossing from one angle to another. Whether these are the jaws of former friends or enemies we had no means of ascertaining; no great value appeared to be attached to them; and it was observed, as a curious circumstance, that none of these jaws had the teeth discoloured by the practice of betel chewing.”

First off, Huxley’s vernacular is alarming to modern ears – and this from a bastion of 19th century intellectual enlightenment. Likewise, we wouldn’t by present standards in these circumstances take a willingness to hand over cultural artifacts as ethical licence to receive them.

Moving to Julian Huxley’s editorial. Introducing a chapter titled “Huxley and the Savages”, J.H. appears to be at pains to rationalise, if not apologise for, certain of T.H.’s behaviours, in doing so revealing his own predudices:

“He had none of the trained anthropologist’s insight into the black man’s mind, little conception of the alien ways of thought and feeling in which a primitive savage is enmeshed. His reactions were those of a generous-minded young man with plenty of common sense but a strong feeling for justice. He felt that there was some absolute standard of moral behaviour by which both the explorers and the natives could and should be judged. On the whole, he censured his white companions more hardly than the Papuans and Australian blacks.”

Although his views changed radically in later life, there’s a consistency here with Julian Huxley’s advocacy for Eugenic principles, a belief in the genetic basis for differences between human groups, and the concept of genetic inferiority. I read the passage as an oblique approval of T.H.’s egalitarian sense of justice, but with the suggestion he’s applied it through ignorance and an incorrect assumption that blacks and whites are fundamentally the same. One wonders what T.H. would say, had he the benefit of a time machine, in 1935? Would he ask his grandson, politely, to stay off his team?

From this example, it does start to look in some important respects like cultural attitudes in 1935 hadn’t progressed as much as one might think from those of Victorian times. And were museums still accepting human artifacts in 1935? (I suspect they were, but please speak up if you know). I doubt there was much repatriation of bones going on.

Well, that turned into something of a Huxley-bashing session afterall. In fairness, isolated diary extracts don’t give the most rounded impression of a person and, as I actually think the Rattlesnake diary does a particulary good job of that for Huxley, I’ll close by encouraging you to make a full reading (it’s not too long, very readable, and not at all boring).

Update 13.3.11 – Natural History Museum news release on the Torres Strait repatriation (10.3.11)

Update 6.5.11 – Torres Strait Island Community ancestral remains return begins and video

Update 23.11.11 Museum Returns 19 Ancestral Remains to Torres Straits Islanders (Natural History Museum)

Sources

(1) T.H.Huxley’s Diary of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake. Ed. Julian Huxley, Chatto and Windus, London 1935

(2) Narrative of the voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, commanded by the late Captain Owen Stanley during the years 1846-50

John MacGillivray, George Busk, Robert Gordon Latham, Edward Forbes, Adam White – 1852

(3) The Huxley File, Guide 2, Voyage of the Rattlesnake. Charles Blinderman, Clark University.

(4) Natural History Museum returns bones of 138 Torres Strait Islanders. Guardian newspaper, 10th March, 2011

Also of interest: Julian Huxley and the Invention of the Public Scientist (BBC Radio 4)

Photographs are taken from the author’s copy of T.H.Huxley’s Rattlesnake Diary and public domain sources.

Biography, Chemistry, History, History of Science

Humphry Davy – Finding Love in the Colourful Age of Romantic Science

February 15, 2011 Tim Jones 2 Comments

You’re a young 33, with an already impressive scientific career under your belt, and – although you only suspect it – a spectacular future ahead of you. Within 10 years, you’ll be elected President of the Royal Society.

But in November 1811, you’ve got something else on your mind.

How exactly would Humphry Davy (he of Davy Lamp fame among many other achievements) impress the first true love of his life – the beautiful widow and heiress Jane Apreece ?

Well, as it turned out……with more science of course. And unlikely as it might seem, with quotes from the book whose spine forms the header of this very blog: Erasmus Darwin’s Zoonomia. (Erasmus was Charles Darwin’s grandfather….how many times)

Over to you, Humph….

‘There is a law of sensation which may be called the law of continuity & contrast of which you may read in Darwin’s Zoonomia [sic]. An example is – look long on a spot of pink, & close your eyes, the impression will continue for some time & will then be succeeded by a green light. For some days after I quitted you I had the pink light in my eyes & the rosy feelings in my heart, but now the green hue & feelings – not of jealousy – but of regret are come.’

Smooth, or what?

I’m not the first to spot Davy’s creative application of ground-breaking ideas in colour perception; the above passage is from Richard Holmes’s award-winning Age of Wonder. But what’s it all about? Let’s start with Zoonomia.

Erasmus describes his experiments on colour and the eye in Volume I, Section III: Motions of the Retina; and Section XI: Ocular Spectra.

In his letter to Jane Apreece, Davy is referring to this experiment (Warning for the unfamiliar: f = s):

Later, Erasmus restates the experiment and proposes a mechanism for the observed effect:

text_redspot — Zoonomia Vol1 Section III

pinkspot — Red Spot (Zoonomia V1 S.III p.14)

Darwin’s experiments covered a range of colour and contrast effects. Here in his ‘tadpole’ experiment he interprets the bright after-image we see after staring at a dark object, explained again in terms of conditioning and sensitivity of the retina.

blackspot — Erasmus’s ‘tadpole’ (a little smudged after 200 years)

The drawings in Zoonomia are individually hand drawn and hand coloured. In this passage, Erasmus encourages his readers to partake of some drawing-room diversion using silks of many colours:

multicol — Erasmus encourages his readers to lay down silks

zoonomia_colour — Readers are encourgaged to lay down coloured silks

All exciting stuff, not least for Erasmus, who betrays his giddiness in this chuckling wind up to his analysis, where he curries favour with the incumbent president of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks.

“I was surprised, and agreeably amused, with the following experiment. I covered a paper about four inches square with yellow, and with a pen filled with a blue colour wrote upon the middle of it the word BANKS in capitals, and sitting with my back to the sun, fixed my eyes for a minute exactly on the centre of the letter N in the middle of the word;after closing my eyes, and shading them somewhat with my hand, the word was dinstinctly seen in the spectrum in yellow letters on a blue field; and then, on opening my eyes on a yellowish wall at twenty feet distance, the magnified name of BANKS appeared written on the wall in golden characters.” [Banks was elected President of the Royal Society in 1778].

banks — Erasmus saw Banks’s name in large golden letters on his garden wall

Did Erasmus get it right with all that stuff about flexing of the antagonist fibres and analogy to the muscles? Well, he wasn’t a million miles away from the truth. Indeed, it looks like yet another case of Erasmus Darwin not getting the credit he deserves for being ahead of the game.

Here’s a modern popular version of the tadpole ‘trick’ (Credit: from here)

The idea is you stare at the bulb for 20 or 30 seconds then look at the white space to the right of it. The popular description of the effect is in terms of the retina cells stimulated by the light portions of the image being desensitized more than those which respond to the dark part of the image – so that the least depleted cells react more strongly when the eye switches to the more uniform all-white image next to the bulb.

Benzynowa_lampa_gornicza_Davy'ego — Davy Lamp (Wiki Commons)

The modern authors note also that the size of the afterimage varies directly with the distance of the surface on which it is viewed: a manifestation of Emmert’s Law. This is consistent with Erasmus’s report of the name BANKS writ large on his garden wall.

Likewise, the modern interpretation of colour afterimages is popularly framed in terms of how ‘fatigued’ cells respond to light (See how fatigued’ aligns with Erasmus’s muscular references). Erasmus didn’t know we have two types of light-sensitive cells in the eye: cones (that broadly speaking detect colour) and rods (that are more sensitive to absolute brightness), and that the cones themselves are sub-divided to be maximally sensitive to red , blue and green (RGB).

But he did understand the concept of complementary colours, and recognised that whatever part of the retina detects the colour red becomes fatigued through over-exposure; he’d got the principle that green appears againt white as a kind of negative red ).

If we dig a little deeper we find the brain-proper conspires with the retina to consider what we see in terms of black-white, red-green, and blue-yellow opponencies. And the corresponding three sets of retinal cells operate in a pretty arithmetical fashion: the electrical impulse sent to the brain by the red-green cells is proportional to the net red-green exposure to light that the cell has experienced in recent time; likewise the blue-yellow sensitive cells.

That’s all clear then.

What bugs me a wee bit is that in my research for this post I never once saw a reference to Erasmus Darwin. Rather, the standard historical reference seems to be the German psychologist Ewald Hering (1834-1919), who is credited with the first observations of the phenomenon.

Hold the horses – it’s Valentines Day

Ok, we got a bit lost in the science there. And I got a bit hot under the collar; eh-hem. So, the real question is: did Davy’s colourful overtures hit the mark? Well, sort of. Humphry Davy and Jane Apreece married the following year in 1812. The bad news is it didn’t really work out longterm.

All the same, Davy shone ever bright in his science. Already famous for discovering a whole range of new chemical elements, including via separation by electrolysis potassium and sodium, and chlorine gas; he went on to discover elemental iodine and, for good measure, invented the Davy Lamp – thereby saving who knows how many thousands of lives in the mining indistry. In 1820, when Banks’s death ended his 40+ year run at the head of the Royal Society, Davy was elected President.

All of which doubtless kept a bit of colour in his cheeks.

Penzance19small — Shop-front in Penzance where Davy served his early apprenticeship (Tks S.Klinge)

Sources

Darwin, Erasmus. Zoonomia Vol 1 Pub. J.Johnson 1796 (photos are from author’s copy)

Holmes, Richard. Age of Wonder. Pub. Harper Press (the softback is out for about £7 now – buy it!)

And Resources

The Guttenburg version of Zoonomia Vol 1 is here.

Biography, Botany, History, Nostalgia, weather

Huxley and Tyndall, Ill-Prepared Alpinists ?

January 28, 2011 Tim Jones 5 Comments

It’s many years since that winter weekend I met up with friends in the UK’s Lake District National Park, intent on hiking the slopes of Helvellyn.

Helvellyn (Photo: Simon Ledingham, WikiCommons)

We’d arrived in groups from various locations, and it was during the traditional kitting-up ritual, managed out the back of our respective vehicles, that the full realisation of my ill-preparedness struck home.

Confidence in my sturdy boots and fleece failed to counter the sinking dread I felt as my friends systematically bedecked themselves, NASA pre-flight-ops style, with all the latest snow gear. The thing was, I simply didn’t own, or had neglected to bring, the mittens, over-trousers, goggles, and miscellaneous species of crampons and ice-axe recommended by the now darkening sky.

Just as well I was in the safe invincibility of my early twenties.

So off up the hill went we. Almost immediately it started snowing – gently at first, with a serious deterioration setting in at 2000 feet; a full-blown blizzard now: horizontal snow, near zero-visibility, heavy reliance on compass etc.

I stood clown-like, my gaiterless cotton trousers stiff as boards, the ice caking and cracking as I lifted my legs through the thick snow. My fingers and face went numb. Resplendent in Gortex, my fellow hikers peered out from their hermetic cocoons, reflectorised goggles glinting from deep within wind-cheating hoods. Proffered spare socks were gratefully accepted and fashioned into makeshift gloves.

Then as the storm blew into near total white-out, we made the only possible decision, irrespective of equipment, and turned around.

Had we pushed on, things could have got nasty. As it was, we’d still managed something of a walk, and I guess I got what I deserved by way of a sound freezing and lesson learned. You’ve got the picture.

In Good Company

420px-JohnTyndall(1820-1893),Engraving,SIL14-T003-09a_cropped — John Tyndall

This mildy embarrassing tale comes to mind because of research I’ve been doing into the history of botany (and science stuff in general) in Wales.

And as it turns out, I’m not the first to show up for a mountain ascent without the proper kit. What’s surprising perhaps is that, among scientists of the Victorian age, that honour goes to none other than seasoned Alpinist John Tyndall and ‘Darwin’s Bulldog’ Thomas Huxley for their 1860 ascent of – not Helvellyn this time – but Mount Snowdon in North Wales.

Snowdonia was a major stomping ground for botanists in the 18th and 19th centuries, and by the 19th century, professional guiding had become quite a local industry.

In ‘The Botanists and Guides of Snowdonia’, Dewi Jones describes how mountain guide Robin Hughes first met up with Tyndall and Huxley:

“Robin Hughes was 61 when he guided John Tyndall, the famous alpine mountaineer and scientist, up Snowdon from Gorffwysfa (now Pen y Pass) in 1860. Tyndall, despite his Alpine experience, had arrived in the area on a snowy December day rather ill prepared for a winter assault on Snowdon, but they managed to gain the summit despite having to wade through drifts of soft snow. Tyndall, with his friend Huxley, had brought no ice axes or gaiters with them. They bought two rake handles at a shop in Bethesda, while on their way from Bangor to Capel Curig, and had the local blacksmith fit them with rings and iron spikes. During the ascent Tyndall complained of numbness in the feet as the result of his boots becoming filled with snow due to the absence of gaiters.“

So, with all due credit for the last minute improvisations, one still wonders what they were thinking – especially Tyndall. With Tyndall aged 40 and Huxley 35 in 1860, it’s not like either man could claim the inexperience of youth.

View down Llanberis Pass from Llanberis (Photo: Tim Jones)

A bit more digging suggests Huxley at least was distracted. The Snowdon trip had been arranged by his wife Nettie, with the help of Tyndall, to relieve the depression he suffered at the recent death of their son, Noel. That Nettie had soon after given birth to another son only added to Huxley’s confusion (Desmond):

[Hal hardly knew whether] ‘it was pleasure or pain. The ground has gone from under my feet once & I hardly know how to rest on anything again’

Desmond continues:

Nettie…..conspired with Tyndall to get Hal away. That meant one thing. In unprecedented Boxing Day frosts, when the thermometer plummeted to -17 degrees, Busk and Tyndall marched him off to the rareified air of the Welsh mountains, reaching Snowdon on 28th December. The grandeur of it matched ‘most things Alpine‘. (Busk is George Busk (TJ)).

On 19th December, Huxley had written to his friend Joseph Hooker that he was:

“…going to do one sensible thing, however, viz. to rush down to Llanberis with Busk between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day and get my lungs full of hill-air for the coming session.” (The Huxley Letters.)

Llanberis is the village at the base of Snowdon, and Pen y Pass the highest point in the nearby pass. There’s a pub there now, and in 1860 an inn, where, according to Tyndall, Hughes fueled up with whisky before the trip, [and Huxley doubtless topped off his brandy flask] (Tyndall).

snowdon_summit_train — Snowdon Summit - in better weather (Photo:Tim Jones)

Snowdon Summit — Snowdon summit. No train or cafe in Tyndall's day

Fifteen years later, writing his book Hours of Exercise in the Alps, Tyndall’s torment on Snowdon was fresh in his mind:

“I had no gaiters, and my boots were incessantly filled with snow. My own heat sufficed for a time to melt the snow; but this clearly could not go on for ever. My left heel first became numbed and painful; and this increased till both feet were in great distress. I sought relief by quitting the track and trying to get along the impending shingle to the right. The high ridges afforded me some relief, but they were separated by couloirs in which the snow had accumulated, and through which I sometimes floundered waist-deep. The pain at length became unbearable; I sat down, took off my boots and emptied them; put them on again; tied Huxley’s pocket handkerchief round one ankle; and my own round the other, and went forward once more. It was a great improvement – the pain vanished and did not return.”

And that’s pretty much the story. Maybe it’s because I know the territory so well, or just that I’m a big fan of both these guys; but I love the imagery of Huxley and Tyndall spilling out of Pen y Pass with their half-cut guide, then trogging up Snowdon with their frozen feet and rake handles.

Anyway, all this staring at a computer screen is unhealthy; I’m off out.

Now where did I put those gloves……

Sources

Jones, Dewi. The Botanists and Guides of Snowdonia. Pub. Gwasg Carreg Gwalch (Jun 1996), ISBN-10: 0863813836, ISBN-13: 978-0863813832

Tyndall, J. Hours of Exercise in the Alps. Pub. Appleton and Company 1875 (Tyndall originally described his exploits in the Saturday Review 6 Jan 1861 as ‘The Ascent of Snowdon in Winter‘, but clearly felt the tale was worth re-telling in his Alpine book)

Desmond, Adrian. Huxley The Devil’s Disciple. Pub. MIchael Joseph 1994. pp 289-290.

Jones, G.Lindsay. The Capel Curig Footpaths up Snowdon, A Brief History (link to pdf at http://www.snowdonia-society.org.uk)

The Huxley File (Charles Blinderman) at Clark University http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/

Clark, R.W. The Huxleys. Pub. Heinemann, 1968. P64

Related posts on Zoonomian

Happy Birthday Thomas Henry Huxley

Fine Words

astronomy, Biography, Book reviews, Books, Engineering, History, Physics

Book Review: Collider – the search for the world’s smallest particles, by Paul Halpern

October 22, 2010 Tim Jones 1 Comment

Hardcover: 272 pages
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons (28 July 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0470286202
ISBN-13: 978-0470286203
Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16.3 x 3.3 cm

Good luck I say to anyone setting out to write a popular science book on particle physics. The concepts are weird, the math is hard; and on publishing timescales there’s not a whole lot of new stuff worth talking about.

Moreover, it’s a tall order that’s less about content and more about the way you tell it. Happily, in Collider: The Search for the World’s Smallest Particles– Paul Halpern tells it well.

Anchoring the core physics around a theme is helpful: whether it’s Brian Greene on string theory or Paul Davies on the search for extra terrestrial life or, as in Halpern’s case, the physics, technology and people that have advanced our understanding of the subatomic world.

Collider is a story of impressive people building big machines to smash small particles together to reveal big truths. With CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) limbering up under the Franco-Swiss countryside, the timing couldn’t be better.

At 232 pages before the notes, Collider is manageable without being superficial, and has sufficient pace and variety to engage even those for whom memories of high-school science induce a cold sweat (and for whom leptons is just another brand of tea).

Tracts of quantum weirdness interspersed with biographical vignettes and discussions on collider engineering should ensure a broad spectrum of readers stay the distance. Those led out of their depth, however gently, will find delightful pangs of (at least partial) understanding along the way. Personally, the engineer in me found particular joy in the mix of ethereal concept and enabling technology that particle physics, perhaps more than any other field, embodies. Halpern as a physicist clearly enjoys and respects all aspects of the endeavour. Indeed, Collider stylistically is quite polymathic, even poetic in a Saganish sort of way:

“Alas, summer’s heat sometimes shapes cruel mirages. After modifying its equipment and retesting its data, the HPWF team’s findings vanished amid the desert sands of statistical insignificance. Skeptics wondered if electroweak unity was simply a beautiful illusion.”

Poetry aside, the physics kicks in early with unification, theories of everything (TOE), and the limitations of an incomplete Standard Model.

The better known particles are introduced via their discoverers’ stories: Thompson’s electron, Roentgen’s X-Rays, Becquerel and the decomposition products of uranium, Rutherford’s proton, and Chadwick’s neutron.

By describing relatively simple experiments from the early era, like the measurement of alpha and beta particle size, Halpern gives his subject a tangibility, a graspable air that prepares the mental ground for later complexities.

Following the evolution of particle sources, accelerators, and detectors, Collider takes us through a chronology starting with unaccelerated decay products striking stationary targets, to linear accelerators, to the various circular synchrotron variants like Ernest Lawrence’s Bevatron and Cosmotron, ending with the contra-rotating particle streams and super-cooled magnets of the LHC.

As beam energies increased, detectors became more complex, sensitive, and selective, allowing the existence of myriad new particles to be confirmed or discovered. Cloud and bubble chambers joined hand-held scintillation detectors and Geiger counters in the particle physicists’ armory, and as the forerunners of the giant counters, traps and calorimeters stacked up today in CERN’s ATLAS and ALICE experiments.

Halpern devotes the last three chapters to a discussion of dark matter, dark energy and the possibility of higher dimensions in the context of string, brane and M-theory, where he underlines the mutuality of physics and cosmology in understanding the bang, whimper, crunch or (somewhat depressing) rip possibilities of an uncertain multiverse.

Looking to the future, Halpern suggests the fate of particle physics itself is less certain than current LHC excitement might lead us to believe. If the Higgs Boson, higher dimensions, or mini-blackholes show up, then fine; but if they don’t – where do we go next?’. Larger machines might be an answer, but with costs that were never pocket money now truly enormous, stakeholders, including the physics community, will need to look to their priorities. And as if to say ‘don’t say it will never happen’, Halpern dedicates a whole chapter to the last, some would say terminal, back-step in American particle physics: the 1992 cancellation of the Reagan era Superconducting Super Collider (SSC).

Something Collider really brought home for me is how the nature of particle physics as a discipline and a career has changed. Individual pioneers have been replaced by research groups working on projects staffed by thousands. As Halpern says, if the Higgs were discovered, they’d be no obvious single candidate for the inevitable Nobel prize (except Higgs himself of course). Data filtration and computation as disciplines have become as important as the collider itself: the LHC is served by a global network of computers. That creates the opportunity for remote distributed working and facilitates multi-national involvement, but also means young researchers need to think about the kind of experience, and resume, they’re building. At PhD level already, Halpern says the slow pace of fundamental revelations has required a force-put change in the definition of what qualifies for the degree in particle physics [we can’t all split the atom for the first time, right?].

I’ve one critical note on the history, and maybe I’ve just been reading too many Cold War biographies of late, but I felt Halpern’s analysis underplayed the military motivation and sponsorship behind the adolescent years of particle physics. Given that the topic’s already well covered in works like Gregg Herken’s Brotherhood of the Bomb, and that I walked away from Collider feeling inspired rather than cynical, it’s a choice of emphasis I’m inclined to forgive.

So quibbles aside, Collider is a bit of a page turner – which by the timbre of my opening statements isn’t a bad endorsement. By presenting the obscure realities of particle physics in the context of the machines and people that revealed them, Halpern has for sure made an unfamiliar pill easier to swallow.

Biography, education, Physics

Of Physics, Firearms, and Fireworks

September 23, 2010 Tim Jones 4 Comments

I learnt only recently, while researching the early use of computers in schools, that my physics teacher from the late seventies, John Page, had died during 2009.

Better known by his nickname ‘Bumble’ (possibly after the Dickens character), he was certainly a character himself. He was also a teacher who encouraged me to think.

bumblememorial — Reproduced from the Gateway Magazine

For sure, Bumble covered the official syllabus: wheeling out worthy but ultimately plain vanilla physics kit like air pucks, weights, and springs. But the most interesting discussions – the ones that have stuck with me – followed some of his more off-the-wall demonstrations.

For example, as an introduction to Newton’s Laws of Motion and the Gas Laws, Bumble kicked off one lesson by discharging a black powder pistol at the front of the classroom.

The lesson started in the usual way, Bumble making his signature ponderous walk to the laboratory’s front desk, eyes looking at the floor.

Entirely normal so far, except today he carried a long-barrelled revolver in his hand, one chamber of which he proceeded to load, methodically inserting pieces of cloth, then gunpowder, then cloth again (no bullet thankfully), before compressing the package with a small ram rod. We watched in stunned silence.

Gateway Grammar School Leicester — Gateway Grammar School, Leicester (Photo: Tim Jones)

Remember, this was all way before the Dunblane massacre or other school shootings, so I guess we felt a sense of intrigue rather than fear. This was Bumble anyhow – he did weird stuff. With a copper percussion cap in place, the gun was pointed in the general direction of the laboratory wall. And fired.

Within seconds of the most enormous bang echoing through the now smoke-filled laboratory, the Head of Physics, Mr Gill, closely followed by the Head of Chemistry, Mr Scottow, tumbled into the lab looking suitably alarmed. They’d clearly not been pre-briefed, and I still remember their expressions changing from shock to relief – and a glance of resignation between them – as the gunman stepped out of the smoke.

Stunts like Bumble’s Colt Navy revolver demo were attention grabbing and fun, but also an introduction to typically stretching discussions.

In this case, Bumble got us thinking about how long a gun barrel would have to be before the bullet changed direction and went back the other way. Imagine the thought processes needed for that. First off, there’s the non-intuitive realisation that a projectile in a tube can change direction if the pressure behind it falls sufficiently relative to the pressure in front of it – which theoretically can happen in a long enough gun barrel. Then there’s the skill of mentally extrapolating the familiar (relatively short barrel) to unfamiliar extremes (hugely long barrel). Thinking in abstraction and at scales beyond normal experience is useful, for scientists and non-scientists alike, in appreciating the scales relevant to fields as diverse as evolutionary biology and cosmology (and presumably also super-gun design).

Sections of Big Babylon at Fort Nelson, Portsmouth — Sections of the ‘Big Babylon’ Iraqi super-gun at the Royal Armouries, Fort Nelson, Portsmouth (Photo: Tim Jones)

Then comes the actual physics and chemistry: mechanics, thermodynamics, kinetics, friction, shock-wave propagation – not to mention the mathematical tools needed (I don’t remember if we came up with an actual quantitative answer, and suspect an analytical solution is only possible with major simplification. ) The follow-on lesson might cover ballistics: catching up with the bullet after it leaves the gun.

In a similar vein, my introduction to fluid flow through constrictions and Bernoulli’s principle took the form of the largest firework rocket I’d ever seen being launched from the school playground. In the lesson afterwards, we talked about rocket nozzle design. It turned out Bumble was licensed to make fireworks and had designed and cast his own ceramic nozzles. I still marvel that the thing came down ‘safely’ in the confines of the school yard.

So that’s how I remember Bumble. We might at times have got distracted from the strict letter of the course syllabus; but that’s the nature of real-world problems if they’re studied with sufficient rigor. And arguably as the antithesis of spoon-fed exam training, Bumble’s teaching style may not have suited all students. But personally, I love the attitude and approach to education John Page represented, and very much hope we haven’t seen the last of the Bumbles.

animals, Biography, biology, events, History, Museums, Photography

Echoes of Muybridge – Photographic Pioneer

September 7, 2010 Tim Jones 2 Comments

Do the four jackdaws taking off across the left-right diagonal here remind you of anything?

For me, the regular spacing and apparent connected motion of the birds is reminiscent of the work of nineteenth century photography pioneer, Eadweard Muybridge.

Born in 1830, Muybridge photographed many sequences of birds in flight like the one below. But he’s probably better known for his animations of galloping horses, revealing for the first time that, at certain points, horses literally fly.

Eadweard Muybridge's Bird in Flight — Eadweard Muybridge’s Bird in Flight

Muybridge’s techniques revealed an animal’s true motion, knowledge that until his arrival had been lost in a blur of busy limbs.

Before photography, the motion of horses in motion was often mis-represented. Baronet with Sam Chifney Up, by George Stubbs. (Photo: Tim Jones of a painting at Huntington Library)

I should explain that Muybridge made sequenced compilations of stills taken of a single animal, while my picture is a happenstance capture of several birds taking off in close proximity and in apparent sequence: reminiscent of an airfield scramble or ducks flying up a wall. So I’ve got an illusion evocative of Muybridge, not a simulation, and the motions of different birds cannot be linked. (Or can they? Formation take-off? I’m reminded never to under-estimate the Corvidae family!)

By another happenstance, it turns out Muybridge was born and raised in the town where I now live: Kingston-upon-Thames in Surrey. And while he spent most of his working life in America, Muybridge left the materials of his important photographic legacy to his home town, where they reside in the Kingston Museum and Archive, five minutes walk from where I’m sitting.

A good selection of Muybridge material is normally on display in the museum, representative of his animal and human figure work, but also featuring his definitive 1878 panorama of San Francisco (link to America Hurrah website).

muybridgepanorama — Muybridge’s San Francisco Panorama (Photo credit: America Hurrah)

And if you’d like to find out more about Muybridge and his legacy, there couldn’t be a better time. Beginning this week, Wednesday 8th September, the Tate Britain will launch a Muybridge retrospective, and our own Kingston Museum will, from September 18th, host the Muybridge Revolutions exhibition, featuring unseen exhibits like Muybridge’s collection of Zoöpraxiscope discs. The Kingston exhibition is part of a broader range of Muybridge related activities being coordinated by Kingston University with Kingston Council.

Fallow deer. (Photo:Tim Jones, Darkroommatter.com)

But returning to my jackdaws in a more romantic frame. I like to ponder Muybridge walking the same routes I take today as I photograph the wildlife of Home Park; his meeting the ancestors of present-day jackdaws, deer and rabbits; and with his frustration at the unfathomable rapidity of their movements, the seed of motion photography being sown….

Update 12 October 2010

The powers that be are projecting Muybridge animations onto the side of Kingston on Thames police station. Very nice.

Muybridge on Kingston upon Thames police station (Photo:Tim Jones)

Biography, biology, evolution, Museums, religion, Visits

Darwin ‘Hat-Trick’

May 9, 2009 Tim Jones 3 Comments

Short note on my ‘Darwin Hat-Trick day’ last Wednesday. Nothing too profound – but some nice pics!

Final resting place of the Beagle? Cutting in the Paglesham shore (photo Tim Jones)

And again with me for scale (photo: Sven Klinge)

We set off at 5 a.m., and by the end of the day had visited: (a) the supposed final resting place of Darwin’s Beagle at Paglesham, (b)the newly refurbished former home of Darwin, ‘Down House’, in Kent, (c) the Geological Society in central London for a talk from Darwin biographer Janet Browne.

Paglesham location Nr. Rochford (image Google Maps)

This sudden urge to drive around some of the more remote reaches of England’s green and pleasant land was triggered by a recent talk by Dr Robert Prescott at the Royal Society. A podcast or vidcast should be available here within the next few days.

Prescott, who is researching the Beagle’s fate post-Darwin, has shown that after her last sea voyage in 1843 the ship served as an anti-smuggling watch vessel, anchored amidst the twisting system of waterways north of the Thames estuary. He speculates, with evidence from contemporary charts, that the mastless hulk ended its days in a permanent mooring cut into the mud of Paglesham East End, near Rochford. With images from Prescott’s talks fresh in our minds, we successfully located the otherwise unremarkable stretch of grassy mud-bank shown in the first photo.

Ground radar has revealed something of the right size and shape for the Beagle about 6 meters down, but tests on core drill samples are ongoing. The team have identified wood and diatoms, and now hope to find evidence of life specific to the South Seas caught up in the timbers. There’s some evidence that the top half of the ship was salvaged, and wooden structures consistent with the naval architecture of the day have been found in this nearby boathouse.

Timber structures consistent with the Beagle were found in this building (photo Tim Jones)

According to Prescott, Darwin never visited the Beagle after his famous voyage, despite the relative proximity of the craft to his home at Downe and documentary evidence that the Beagle’s Captain – Fitzroy – had kept in contact with Darwin. While Darwin acknowledged the importance of the ship to his life and work, it appears any emotional attachment he had for the vessel did not extend to a need to be reunited.

Having driven 60 miles to walk over a (albeit important) stretch of mud, we continued our walk along the river bank to be rewarded with a watch post from another era – a World War II pillbox. Pillboxes like these can be found across the south of England, and originally formed a continuous defensive line against potential German invasion.

World War II defensive pillbox at Paglesham (photo Tim Jones)

Leaving Paglesham around 9 a.m., and arriving at Down House half an hour before the house itself opened, gave us plenty of time to explore the grounds and gardens of the Darwin family home. There’s been some replanting and landscaping as part of the refurbishment, but the famous greenhouse and ‘sandwalk’ , where Darwin did some of his most inspired thinking, are rightly unchanged.

Learned Gents on the 'Sandwalk' — Learned Gentlemen look for inspiration on the 'Sandwalk' (photo Belinda Murphy)

Interesting angle on the sandwalk (photo Sven klinge) — Interesting angle on the sandwalk (photo Sven Klinge)

The house itself has benefited from a super exterior paint job and refurbishment, and a major re-modeling of the upper-floor exhibition space. The personal audio guides are now video guides, but retain a pleasant enough welcome from David Attenborough. But, photographers beware ! I’ve never been anywhere where the taking of pictures inside the house is so actively discouraged – quite a contrast to how things are managed in the USA. I’d also advise an early weekday visit, as parking is limited and the experience degrades when the house is crowded. All the same, it’s a beautiful location, the house is full of atmosphere, and it’s well worth the £8 entrance fee.

Down House - rear from the garden (photo Tim Jones)

Down House rear garden (phot Sven Klinge)

Down House is a stone’s throw from the village of Downe (with an ‘e’ this time) and the local church where Emma Darwin, Charles’s brother Erasmus, and Darwin’s servant Parslow are buried.

Emma and Erasmus's grave in Downe Cemetary (photo Sven Klinge)

Grave of Darwin's servant (photo Sven Klinge) — Grave of Darwin's servant Parslow (photo Sven Klinge)

At 2 o’clock we were starting to feel the effects of the early start, so it was back to Kingston to drop off the car and consume some large coffees.

Phase three of our hat-trick required a train ride into the centre of London to see and hear Janet Browne speak at the Geological Society.

Browne, best known for her two Darwin biographies Voyaging and Power of Place, was over from Harvard to speak on the theme of ‘Two Hundred Years of Evolution: Celebrating Charles Darwin in 2009’ .

I guess the thrust of the talk was around how the various controversies surrounding Darwin and his theory have been accepted, challenged, and interpreted at different times and places. For my part I found Browne’s historical interpretation clear and entertaining. I was, however, at something of a loss to understand quite where she personally stood on more contemporary issues such as the compatibility of Darwinian evolutionary theory and religious belief. What I took from the early part of her talk as an accommodationist approach didn’t entirely jibe with her response during questions when, for example, she credited Dawkins’s stance as ‘brave’. Anyhow, you can listen to the podcast here at the Geological Society website and draw your own conclusions.

Time to wash the car….

Biography, biology, science communication

Happy Birthday Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895)

May 4, 2009 Tim Jones 8 Comments

I can’t let the day go by without some sort of homage to Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895); for today – 4th May – is indeed his birthday.

Huxley in 1893 (photo Tim Jones from 'Life & Letters' Appleby 1901) — Huxley in 1893 (photo Tim Jones from a print in ‘Life & Letters’ Appleby 1901)

Everyone with a special interest in science, or those working in the sciences, has heard of T.H. Huxley. But for many others the name Huxley is more often associated with T.H.’s grandson Aldous – of ‘Brave New World’ fame or, closer to 20th century science and politics, Aldous’s biologist brother and founder of UNESCO Julian Huxley.

And in Darwin’s 200th anniversary year we’ve seen ‘T.H.’ come to the fore as Darwin’s Bulldog – portrayed as a kind of willing intellectual ‘heavy’, clearing the way of dissenters for Charles’s evolutionary thesis to hold forth – sending bishops flying as he went. I referenced the most recent re-enactment of Huxley’s encounter with Bishop Wilberforce during this year’s Secularist of the Year Awards here.

Thomas Huxley - 'Darwin's Bulldog' (image Vanity Fair) — Thomas Huxley – ‘Darwin’s Bulldog’ (image Vanity Fair)

But Thomas Henry was very much his own man (no sexism intended). Originally trained in medicine, he served as a ship’s surgeon aboard the Rattlesnake in early life but, lacking the financial independence enjoyed by Darwin and other ‘gentlemen scientists’ of the day, had to establish his scientific credibility by hard clawing through the establishment.

In fact, T.H. should be the patron saint of impoverished scientists, for while his later life was comfortable, financial recompense during most of his career was totally out of kilter with his societal contribution and achievement. Fortunately, on an occasion when Huxley’s body failed to keep pace with his spirit, friends who were also members of the scientific ‘X-Club’ chipped in with Darwin to pay for a recuperative continental break.

Huxley’s interest was science in all its manifestations, and his legacy is today’s acceptance of science as a profession, and a system for science education that has its roots in the biology classes he held at South Kensington.

Huxley worked on the top floor of this building in South Kensington, London (now part of the V&A museum) (photo Tim Jones)

But T.H. was not happy doing just science. In fact there was a conscious moment when he was overtaken by the conviction that helping others understand science was even more important than the science itself; I guess that makes him the patron saint of science communicators as well then!

There was nothing snobbish or ‘look down your nose’ about Huxley’s lectures for working men. His monologue on ‘A Piece of Chalk’ is an icon of communication – of any sort – and can be compared with Michael Faraday’s famed public dissection of ‘The Chemical History of A Candle’ at the Royal Institution.

T.H.Huxley's grave in East Finchley (photo Thanks Sven Klinge) — T.H.Huxley’s grave in East Finchley (photo Thanks Sven Klinge)

Being so close to nature, evolutionary concepts, and Charles Darwin, Huxley was bound to take a stance on religion. He coined the term ‘agnostic’ and declared himself as such. I think to understand exactly what HE meant by that you need to read his letters and essays. A pragmatist, Huxley did not subscribe to religious dogma through scripture, but at the same time was concerned that society could not function without something to fill the gap that would be left by, say, the removal of bibles from schools. I’ll resist several more paragraphs comparing Huxley to Richard Dawkins in this regard; suffice to say I believe there are fundamental similarities between the two – but also differences.

Although you’d never guess from the title or intro to this blog, it was Huxley, and specifically Adrian Desmond’s biographies – ‘The Devil’s Desciple’ and ‘From Devil’s Desciple to Evolution’s High Priest’ (which respectively deal with Huxley’s earlier and later years) that have most inspired me – in quite fundamental ways.

Anyone who ‘Twitters’ knows there are an awful lot of motivational gurus out there and, while I’m not against that, believe you’ll find in Huxley’s life a 90% exemplar of the right-thinking, right-stuff behaviour for a happy life. In fact, exploring the Zoonomian Archives I find I referenced the great man in August last year, here comparing his philosophy with that of a former headmaster at my school; perhaps the Huxley influence runs deeper than I know? There endeth that lesson.

If you want to know more about T.H., read the Desmond biographies alongside some of Huxley’s collected essays. And for a deeper understanding, the ‘Life and Letters of T.H.Huxley’ – published by his son Leonard in 1901 are engaging. The Huxley File is a comprehensive web reference.

Now something for the Huxley aficionados and the just plain interested:

On 15th July 1893, Huxley was sitting at his desk in his home Hodeslea, in Eastborne in the south of England, writing a letter to Sir J Skelton; you can find it on p.383 of the U.S. Appleton edition of ‘Letters’.

Huxley's study at Hodeslea. Painted 1893. (Source: Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, D.Appleton and Sons, 1901 — Huxley’s study at Hodeslea. Painted 1893. (Source: Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, D.Appleton and Sons, 1901

Hodeslea in Huxley's Day (Source: Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, D.Appleton & Sons, 1901) — Hodeslea in Huxley’s Day (Source: Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, D.Appleton & Sons, 1901)

Hodeslea Today (photo P.D.Smith) — Hodeslea Today (photo permission P.D.Smith)

Huxley tells Skelton how he never fully recovered from a bout of influenza in the spring and is setting off the next day to Maloja (Switzerland) for one of his recuperative breaks. As Huxley says: “It mended up the shaky old heart-pump five years ago, and I hope will again.” The next recorded letter I can find is from October 1st 1893. But Huxley did write at least one more letter on the 15th July – I know because I have it :-).

Huxley's letter to Williams & Norgate (photo Tim Jones, Huxley ALS private ownership) — Huxley’s letter to Williams & Norgate (photo Tim Jones, Huxley ALS private ownership)

The note is to the publishers Williams and Norgate, sending a cheque as payment on his account, and asking them to obtain a missing volume.

So, it’s not exactly a keystone in the scientific chronology. But, taken in the context of the Skelton letter, Huxley’s last line does conjour up images of packed suitcases and trunks: ‘I am going abroad directly for nine weeks‘. Proving……I’m just a big romantic at heart.

Of related interest….

Liz Maloney explores Huxley’s time in Eastbourne, and puts a few wrong perceptions right in the process. Thomas Henry Huxley: A Good Eastbourne Neighbour, in the Eastbourne Local Historian.

astronomy, Biography, History, space, Visits

Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, George?

February 28, 2009 Tim Jones 1 Comment

The sun is shining, the outside doors are open, and from the window of the Royal Society library I can see the tops of trees along the Mall.

Michael Lemonick is introduced by the RS's Felicity Henderson — Michael Lemonick is introduced by the Royal Society's Felicity Henderson (photo, thanks Sven Klinge)

Today, at this first in a season of lunchtime talks at the RS, I’m learning from Michael Lemonick some things I never knew about William and Caroline Herschel.

You can hear the audio and video (slides) yourself on the RS podcast page. Lemonick’s book ‘The Georgian Star’ is published by W.W.Norton.Co. In the meantime, this short commentary.

Michael Lemonick at the Royal Society (photo Sven Klinge) — Michael Lemonick at the Royal Society (photo, thanks Sven Klinge)

Sir William Herschel is best known as the discoverer of Uranus, a planet that did indeed in the days of William’s sponsor George III go by the popular name of George or ‘Georgium Sidus’ to be precise. But discovering light blue planets that spin at a funny angle is only part of William’s and his sister Caroline’s story.

Having moved to London from Germany, William Herschel the music teacher was enthralled by the stars he saw overhead whilst travelling between clients. Disappointed with the telescopes of the day, he started to build a whole series of his own that would culminate in a 4ft mirrored, 40 ft long giant sponsored by the King himself.

Joined by his sister in Bath, both Herschel’s were professional astronomers in the pay of the King, making Caroline the first ever professional female astronomer (he on £200pa, she as ‘assistant’ on £50pa).

Between them they discovered 3000 galaxies, and Caroline alone identified 8 comets. Uranus was mistakenly declared a comet on its discovery in 1781. Impressively, the Herschel star charts were still in practical use into the 1950s and 60s.

The Herschel’s were amongst the first astronomers to take an interest in the structure and evolution of the universe, rather than following the more practical motivations of the time – like enabling better navigation at sea. William tried to measure stellar distance by the parallax method, but failed due to equipment sensitivity. He was more successful at plotting out the shape of our galaxy – the Milky Way.

Herschel's plot of our galaxy (image WikiCommons)

William Herschel is in some ways the father of infra-red astronomy, having discovered the infra-red region of the spectrum from its warming effect on bottles of liquid; he called them ‘calorific rays’. As Lemonick pointed out, there seems some injustice in the naming of the James Webb space telescope due to launch in 2013, which will work predominantly in the IR spectral range (there is a William Herschel telescope already on the Canary Islands) .

And lastly – I never knew this. It was the common belief of the time, shared by Herschel, that all the planets were inhabited, with the sun just another planet – albeit a particularly bright golden one.

The logic extended to a belief that the luminescent surface of the sun was the visible top side of clouds and, charmingly, that sunspots were holes in the cloud through which – presumably with a powerful enough telescope – one could view ‘sun people’. Those were the days…..

Biography, biology, events, evolution

Darwin’s Sacred Cause

February 13, 2009 Tim Jones 2 Comments

As any Darwin aficionado will tell you, as this celebratory week draws to a close, there is one biography of Charles Darwin that stands out from the crowd.

James Moore, Olivia Judson, and Adrian Desmond at Imperial College (photo Tim Jones, Darkroommatter.com)

Olivia Judson and Adrian Desmond at Imperial College (photo Tim Jones) — Olivia Judson and Adrian Desmond at Imperial College (photo Tim Jones, Darkroommatter.com)

James Moore & Olivia Judson at Imperial College (photo Tim Jones) — James Moore & Olivia Judson at Imperial College (photo Tim Jones, Darkroommatter.com)

Not only is Adrian Desmond’s and James Moore’s 1991 ‘Darwin‘ comprehensive at 677 pages before the notes, it’s brick-like iconicity somehow speaks of closure, the last word, to any further debate about Darwin.

On a personal note, not withstanding Janet Browne’s Voyaging and Power of Place, which are both excellent reads, and show that Darwin was not in fact the last word, I have a particular affection for the Desmond and Moore biography. It’s simply one of the few books of length that I’ve ever found the right combination of time and inclination to read right through non-stop; it took about a week one Christmas holiday. And as with all good biographies of departed figures, that level of immersion leaves one genuinely saddened when the subject dies.

Adrian Desmond talks about Darwin's Sacred Cause (photo Tim Jones) — Adrian Desmond talks about Darwin's Sacred Cause (photo Tim Jones, Darkroommatter.com)

So it was with some interest last Monday, that I walked the whole 100 feet or so from my department at Imperial College to the Great Hall, to join a public conversation with Olivia Judson interviewing Adrian Desmond and James Moore. The theme – the authors’ NEW book, ‘Darwin’s Sacred Cause‘.

James Moore (photo: Tim Jones, Darkroommatter.com)

This post isn’t a book review. As much as I’d like to drop everything else and read it – I haven’t found the time yet! Thankfully, it looks nothing in length like (as Desmond reminded us at this session) ‘the brick’.

Olivia Judson (photo: Tim Jones, Darkroommatter.com)

Rather – before it becomes completely old news, I’ll point you to this online lecture podcast from Imperial College that helpfully captures the whole session.

That said, as a brief preview, the focus of the conversation is around Darwin and race, and the argument that man (as opposed to finches and other animals) was the core motivation behind developments in the theory of natural selection and the writing of the Origin of Species. The Origin itself, we are told, was originally conceived to include extensive discussion on man and race. The authors further link Darwin’s feelings about race back to a family upbringing and tradition steeped in benevolence and an active opposition to slavery.

Enough said for now – maybe more when I’ve read the book!

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Darwin ‘Hat-Trick’

Happy Birthday Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895)

Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, George?

Darwin’s Sacred Cause

Zoonomian Blog