Biblioqraphy & Natural History

BIBLIOQRAPHY & NATURAL HISTORY Essays presented at a Conference convened in June 1964 by Thomas R. Buckman Lawrence, Kansas 1966 University of Kansas Libraries University of Kansas Publications Library Series, 27 Copyright 1966 by the University of Kansas Libraries Library of Congress Catalog Card number: 66-64215 Printed in Lawrence, Kansas, U.S.A., by the University of Kansas Printing Service. Introduction The purpose of this group of essays and formal papers is to focus attention on some aspects of bibliography in the service of natural history, and possibly to stimulate further studies which may be of mutual usefulness to biologists and historians of science, and also to librarians and museum curators. Bibli• ography is interpreted rather broadly to include botanical illustration. Further, the intent and style of the contributions reflects the occasion—a meeting of bookmen, scientists and scholars assembled not only to discuss specific examples of the uses of books and manuscripts in the natural sciences, but also to consider some other related matters in a spirit of wit and congeniality. Thus we hope in this volume, as in the conference itself, both to inform and to please. When Edwin Wolf, 2nd, Librarian of the Library Company of Phila• delphia, and then Chairman of the Rare Books Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries, asked me to plan the Section's program for its session in Lawrence, June 25-27, 1964, we agreed immediately on a theme. With few exceptions, we noted, the bibliography of natural history has received little attention in this country, and yet it is indispensable to many biologists and to historians of the natural sciences. Zoologists and botanists require de• tailed and exact documentation not only of current literature but of the older sources as well, but workers in the descriptive disciplines, especially taxonomy, constantly find that available bibliographical data is inadequate. At the same time we recognized that bibliographical and historical studies in the natural sciences are better developed and have a longer tradition in Northern Europe. Accordingly it seemed that it might be useful to bring together a number of American specialists and a few of dieir foreign colleagues from England, Sweden and the Netherlands for an exchange of views which would define the importance of the older literature in the natural sciences and describe how researchers in this field employ bibliography in seeking evidence. Given some• thing less than a year for planning, with modest financial resources, and a program limited to two and a half days, comprehensive coverage of the subject could not be expected, but a strong beginning could be made. The chief emphasis of die papers presented is botanical, partly because the historical bibliography of botany is generally in better order than that of the other branches of biology, and partly because of die availability of scholars especially concerned with it. The period is largely the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in Europe and America, and inevitably the work, the v personality, and the influence of Linnaeus are pervasive, although several of the papers range more widely. I have no doubt that there will be few readers who will be equally absorbed by all of them, but there is much of substance and good humour here for every student of the bibliography of natural history. There is considerable diversity of approach, but each of the contributors writes with authority. Three related groups of papers emerge. William T. Stearn in his keynote address presents a broad but detailed view of the uses made by scientists of bibliography in natural history, ranging from a consideration of the sixteenth century naturalists down to modern facsimile publishing of classical florae. Sten Lindroth re-examines the life and work of Linnaeus, classifier extraordinary and one of the great botanical bibliographers, from a refreshingly objective standpoint: dispelling the sacred halo which has surrounded him and prevented a critical assessment of his place in the history of science. The establishment of Charles Willson Peale's remarkable Museum in Phila• delphia, the first institution of any size in this country devoted to natural history is described by John Greene on the basis of his study of the Peak manuscripts. Here is a glimpse of one phase of the earliest American interest in natural history. Jerry Stannard gives an account of another phase, in his paper on the sources for early American botany from its beginnings to the Civil War, sug• gesting the great breadth of American activity in this field, the variety of available material, and the many opportunities for further work in bibliography and in cultural and historical studies of botanical science in the New World. Two papers on botanical illustration take us, in the first instance, into the world of Pierre-Joseph Redoute and his royal patrons, and secondly intro• duce some of the principal pen ts'ao studies of China and the related botanical treatises of Japan. Frans Stafleu writes of the historical, artistic and taxonomic importance of Redoute's illustrations, with the precision of a scientist and with the grace and breadth of vision of a humanist. Richard Rudolph reveals an area of study—the botanical iconography of China and Japan—which has been virtually ignored by Western scholars despite the richness of material at hand. Finally, there are three shorter papers somewhat apart from the botanical center of interest described earlier, but which are nonetheless entirely relevant to the general concerns of the conference. Robert Mengel reflects on the personal hazards and the professional rewards of bibliographical work in ornithology, that branch of zoology which is best provided with descriptive and enumerative keys to its literature. vi Alan Boyden pleads convincingly for the exact and unvarying use of' scientific terms in natural history, a subject which of necessity engages the sympathies of bibliographers. And Jacob Zeitlin documents "the end of the great harvest" in the buying and selling of natural history books, a matter of great concern to all scholars and bookmen who face the task of enriching existing collections, or the far more difficult one of building new ones. Two of the papers presented at the conference were unfortunately not submitted for publication, but should be noted here to complete the record of proceedings. They are Vivian Lee's "Pursuing the Strawberry Through Literature," a review of the early development of the strawberry based on the horticultural and botanical literature of the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries; and Robert Stauffer's "Editing Darwin's Unpublished Book on Natural Selection." I am deeply indebted to Foster Mohrhardt, Director of the National Agri• cultural Library, Washington, D.C., for so ably organizing and moderating a panel discussion on needs and prospects in the bibliography of natural history, following William T. Steam's opening address. The panel members were George H. M. Lawrence, Director, Rachel Mc- Masters Miller Hunt Botanical Library, Pittsburgh, who described the pro• jected Bibliographia Huntiana to be produced by the Hunt research staff during the next fifteen years, comprising full bibliographical descriptions of sixteen to eighteen thousand titles of botanical works published throughout the world during the period 1730-1840, and including two hundred thousand or more cognate titles in the periodical literature of the same dates; Philip C. Ritterbush, Special Assistant to the Secretary, Smithsonian Institution, Wash- ingon, D.C., speaking on the Smithsonian's long-standing interest in develop• ing better control of the data of binomial nomenclature used by systematic biologists, and more adequate taxonomic, floristic and faunistic bibliographies; and Jerry Stannard whose remarks were expanded into the full-length paper presented here. The conference was jointly sponsored by the University of Kansas, and the Linda Hall Library of Science and Technology, Kansas City, Missouri, where the closing session was held on June 27, 1964. I am especially grateful to Provost James R. Surface of the University of Kansas, and to Dr. Joseph C. Shipman, Director of the Linda Hall Library and to its Trustees for their generous financial support; and to the staff of the University of Kansas Library, particulrly Stuart Forth, John Glinka, Alexandra Mason, and Terrence Wil- vii liams, for invaluable assistance in local arrangements. I should also like to express my thanks to L. E. J. Helyar, Editor of the University of Kansas Library Series; and to the Guggenheim Foundation whose generous support of a fellowship year, 1964/1965, enabled me, parallel with other work, to assemble these papers, correspond with the authors, and to undertake preliminary editing. Thomas R. Buckman viii Contents Frontispiece: REDOUT£'S ENGRAVING OF sida ricinoides, from Stirpes Novae (Paris, 1785-6). Thomas R. Buckman: INTRODUCTION William T. Stearn: THE USE OF BIBLIOGRAPHY IN NATURAL HISTORY 1 Sten Lindroth: Two CENTURIES OF LINNAEAN STUDIES 27 Frans A. Stafleu: REDOUTE AND HIS CIRCLE 46 John C. Greene: THE FOUNDING OF PEALE'S MUSEUM 66 Jerry Stannard: EARLY AMERICAN BOTANY AND ITS SOURCES 73 Richard C. Rudolph: ILLUSTRATED BOTANICAL WORKS IN CHINA AND JAPAN 103 Illustrations: FIGURE 1, Woodblock print of a tiger lily from the Illustrated Treatise on Botany, China, 1880; FIGURE 2, Double-page painting of Cirsium incomptum from a manuscript version of the Illustrated Manual

Load more