LINDA HALL LIBRARY
HEDGEHOGNUMBER 66 • FALL 2020
THE Te chnolog y of Print
INSIDE Books about Books page 3 Green Mars page 4 The Beagle Library page 12 President’s Message Library News
During the COVID-19 mandated shutdown, I thought a lot about our reliance on technology. I spent days in my book-lined study and realized how dependent I had become on electronic communications technology to keep the Library’s work moving forward, to meet virtually with colleagues throughout Kansas City, to stay in touch with family and friends, and to access the latest information about the plague that has affected all of our lives. The Boy from Oz Have you heard about the boy from Oz? The clash of technologies became very apparent to me. Print, No, not the one who sang, danced, was an inherently ancient technology, had played a central role in my discovered by Judy Garland, and later life and education as a literature student whose work consisted married Liza Minnelli.1 This young man is of the close analysis of printed texts on paper. Yet, everything I a prodigiously curious fellow, and while do today has become almost completely dependent upon digital he loves to sing, at nine years of age he is communications technologies. These invasive and pervasive too short to join the Radio City Music Hall tools have supplanted their predecessor medium, analog paper- Rockettes’ famed kick line and way too based printing. When paper-based printing will disappear is not young to marry anyone. known, but the time cannot be distant when young children will look at printed books in the same way their slightly older peers Joshua Walsh hails from Victoria on have viewed vinyl long-playing records, reel-to-reel film and Australia’s Surf Coast where he is growing tape, video cassettes, and typewriters. up with his equally talented thirteen-year old sister Tahlia. Joshua came to our The Linda Hall Library is dedicated to the continuing survival attention a few months ago when he began and use of scientific information in print. But more than that, it submitting questions for several of our is a library that documents the history of technology. Devoting Zoom program participants to answer. We space in this issue of the Hedgehog to essays about the became curious how this lad from Down history of printing, the hundreds of books that accompanied Under learned about the Linda Hall Library Charles Darwin on his voyage aboard the HMS Beagle, and and how he acquired his interest in all a recent donation of books that were produced by some things ‘science.’ At our invitation, Joshua of Europe’s earliest printers, is not only appropriate but and his mum, Alison, agreed to answer necessary during this troubling and perplexing time. some questions for the Hedgehog. As we increasingly look to science to find the answers that HEDGEHOG: When did you first become will lead to treatments and cures for the coronavirus and interested in science? vaccines for its prevention, and as our reliance on electronic communications technologies increases by the day while JOSHUA: I became interested in science we remain socially distanced, an increased appreciation of when I was two when my sister Tahlia printing history may soothe, reassure, and lend perspective. started distance education. I wanted to do what she was doing in science! When I Stay well, everyone. was four, I remember doing an experiment
story continues on page 19
1 Peter Allen (1944-1992) Australian-born singer, songwriter, entertainer whose life was the subject of the 2004 musical, Lisa M. Browar, President The Boy from Oz. Allen is the only male dancer ever invited to dance with the Rockettes. 2 Library News Books about Books: Library Patron’s Gift Expands Printing History Collection
arpsichordist, bibliophile, and book collector, Elinor the semicolon and italic type. HEisemann is a woman with very specific interests. Manutius was responsible Long-time Library supporters, Elinor and her late husband for the first printings of some Gustave, were seen frequently in the audience at Library of the most important Greek programs, and today Elinor is an avid consumer of our texts. Elinor’s copy of Niccoló virtual programs. From time to time, she has volunteered Perotti’s commentary on the her time and expertise working on rare book cataloging Roman poet Martial, titled projects in the History of Science Collections. Cornucopia, includes both italic typeface, and Aldus’ When Elinor called in July with an offer to donate any now famous printer’s mark. titles from her personal collection that would augment It joins five other Aldine press Mark of the Aldine Press from and enhance our collections devoted to printing history printed titles in the Library’s Niccolò Perotti’s Cornucopia.1 and technology, she had us at ‘hello.’ collection. Additionally, Elinor’s gift includes four leaves (pages) all printed before 1500, Elinor produced a title list of her printing history collection, including a page from the Polycronicon (a universal each book assiduously cataloged with detailed history concentrating on Britain) printed by William Caxton, descriptions. The range of material was impressive. thought to be the first person to introduce a printing press Examples of early printing from the 1400s and selected into England in 1476. issues of the historic periodical devoted to print history, The Colophon, were obvious additions for our In total, Elinor Eisemann’s gift to the Linda Hall Library collections. and a complete text printed in 1517 in the consists of 204 titles, each of intense interest to anyone print shop of noted Venetian printer Aldus Manutius exploring the history of printing as a technology. We easily got our attention. look forward to sharing them with others wishing to know more about the fascinating history of books and Students of printing history will know that Aldus Manutius printing. Anyone who views these books will certainly created some of the most beautiful typefaces ever. He join the Linda Hall Library in expressing great thanks to popularized the idea of the printer’s mark and invented Elinor Eisemann for this magnificent gift.
1 Perotto, Niccolò, Cornucopia. Venice: Aldus Manutius and Andree Soceri, 1517.
Transitions Although the Linda Hall Library was closed to the Paula Volk public for three months, its work continued and that Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration included saying farewell to several long-time staff Paula Volk retired at the end of April after 31 years members and welcoming several new faces. To our of service. Paula arrived from the banking world retired colleagues we extend our thanks and best to oversee the Library’s investments. In time, her wishes, and to our newly arrived colleagues, a portfolio of responsibilities grew to include those of hearty welcome! chief financial officer, and supervision of the Facilities,
story continues on page 20 3 An illustration from Kenneth Heuer’s Men of Other Planets.
4 GREEN MARS BY JORDAN BIMM, PhD Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Chicago
n 1953, Hubertus Strughold, a German physiologist and We all know Mars as the Red Planet, but what was medical doctor working for the U.S. Air Force (USAF), Strughold’s Green and Red Planet? Where did this Ipublished The Green and Red Planet: A Physiological idea that Mars is a planet of plants come from? How Study of the Possibility of Life on Mars. For millennia, did the expectation of vegetation on Mars shape early philosophers and astronomers have speculated about astrobiology and plans for human exploration? These life elsewhere in the cosmos, but Strughold was the first were the questions I had when I arrived at the Linda modern life scientist to take up this question. As the title Hall Library in January 2019 as a Residential Fellow. of his book suggests, he predicted that there was life My plan was to use the Library’s extensive holding on Mars, but that due to the planet’s apparent lack of of rare astronomy texts to provide the deep historical water, atmospheric pressure, and heat, it was limited to context for Strughold’s mid-century modeling of a Green simple, hardy vegetation, similar to lichens. To test this and Red Planet. hypothesis, Strughold invented a device that has since become a central tool for scientists studying potential The idea of Mars exclusively home to lichens is extraterrestrial life – the Mars Jar. unfamiliar today, but back in the 1950s most of the world’s top astronomers expected the first robotic Beginning in 1956, Strughold used a set of airtight glass missions from Earth to discover vast swaths of this containers to simulate the extreme environment thought vegetation. For example, in a 1955 edition of National to exist on his lichen-lined “Green Mars.” Inside each Geographic, American astronomer E.C. Slipher wrote Mars Jar was a thin atmosphere, arid soil, and freezing “many astronomers now feel sure the large dark areas temperatures. Then, a team of Air Force scientists [on Mars] represent vegetation.” In the history of ideas sealed different microbes, lichens, and mosses inside about life on Mars, “Green Mars” attained its zenith in to see if any could survive. After 100 days, they found the 1950s, between Percival Lowell’s fantastical fin du that some microbes not only survived but actually siècle vision of an intelligent canal-building civilization, multiplied. Strughold called this new field of research and our current much more modest hopes for microbial “astrobiology” (the name the field goes by today), but life, or fossils of it from the distant past. he and his pioneering Air Force research program were soon forgotten. If, on December 4, 1957, you had tuned in to Walt Disney’s animated anthology show Disneyland, After the National Aeronautics and Space Administration you would have seen an episode called “Mars and (NASA) was created in 1958, a new community of Beyond,” depicting a lush, verdant Mars with a narrator academic scientists led by the Nobel Prize winning speculating that “there may be plant life that migrates molecular biologist Joshua Lederberg effectively took in search of richer soil, there may be plants that feed on over the search for life on Mars under the banner of other plants, or even plants that feed on themselves.” exobiology (for “extraterrestrial biology”). If you ask a Two years later, a science fiction film calledThe Angry present-day astrobiologist about the origin of their field, Red Planet featured giant carnivorous flora attacking they will tell you about Lederberg and NASA exobiology, unsuspecting astronauts. In 1958, Strughold appeared not Strughold and USAF astrobiology. It is this missing on the short-lived science television show Doctors military chapter that my project Putting Mars in a Jar, in Space where he noted that only microbes and seeks to recover, reintegrate, and learn from. plant cells had survived in his Mars Jar experiments,
ABOVE and BACKGROUND: Mars images courtesy of NASA Image and Video Library. 5 suggesting that “no advanced animal or intelligent In the early 19th century, British astronomer John creatures are likely on Mars.” Herschel observed that sometimes the dark areas on Mars appeared blueish-green. In 1832, German But the image of a Green and Red Planet was plucked astronomers Wilhelm Beer and Johann Mädler made from the scientific imagination on July 15, 1965 when the first attempt at mapping Mars, and used a greenish NASA’s Mariner 4 probe beamed back the first-ever tint for the darker regions, which they also thought close-up photographs of Mars’s surface showing a barren were oceans. Until this point, descriptions of the landscape more akin to the Moon than the Earth. This was surface of Mars included only land and oceans, no the end, but harder to pin down was the beginning. Who mentions of vegetation. was the first to suggest that Mars was home to vegetation? Answering this question took me deep into the Library’s This changed in 1860 when Emmanuel Liais, a collection and required tracing a timeline of astronomical nearly forgotten French astronomer working in Brazil, observations going back to the 17th century. hypothesized that the dark features on Mars were not oceans, but vast tracts of vegetation. Liais, who was For thousands of years, humans have recognized Mars in also a trained botanist, noticed that the mysterious the night sky for its red appearance. This evoked cultural “seasonal changes” to the dark areas corresponded associations with blood, fire, death, and warfare. The with the melting of the polar caps, and concluded that possibility of life elsewhere in the cosmos has an equally what he and others were witnessing was the regular long intellectual history going back at least to ancient growth cycle of vegetation, regulated by the arrival and Greece. The topic became known as “the plurality of departure of liquid water from the poles.
Russian astronomer Gavriil Tikhov argued that simple, hardy vegetation like lichens that grow in cold, thin, and dry mountain environments still fit the bill, and were likely similar to what was growing on Mars.
worlds debate.” But these early speculations didn’t revolve 1877 was the year that astronomers began to put around UFOs or little green humanoid creatures, they were Mars on the special pedestal it still occupies today. mostly philosophical and theological thought experiments That year Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli geared toward big questions about the nature of the published the now-famous claim that he could see universe, the veracity of the bible, and the power of the a complex network of straight lines on the surface. creator. Proponents of a plurality of inhabited worlds He produced a detailed map but stopped short of imagined other beings on any number of celestial bodies saying anything about what might have caused them. and didn’t single out Mars in particular. Word of these canali ignited a Victorian-era sensation regarding the possibility of life on Mars, which as In the 1600s, shortly after Galileo began using many readers of the Hedgehog will know compelled telescope technology to view the night sky, Mars Percival Lowell to proclaim them evidence of an became more than just a red point of light. Between ancient intelligent civilization desperately trying to 1659 and 1683, Dutch astronomer Christian Huygens stave off drought. viewed Mars through an early telescope and made the first-known sketches attempting to show surface Interestingly, Lowell’s vision of a technologically features. We can see that Huygens saw dark areas advanced Martian society incorporated Liais’s earlier contrasted with lighter areas, as well as a polar ice vegetation hypothesis. To him, the darker regions cap. Right from the start, these dark areas were where the lines seemed to meet were lush oases with assumed to be oceans – bodies of water – and the vegetation growing along the banks of the canals as lighter areas continents of land. Huygens also noted well. But early in the 20th century, new astronomical that the dark areas seemed to grow and shrink over measurements revealed Mars to be far too cold and time, a phenomenon that became known as “seasonal rarified to support the kinds of creatures Lowell had changes” or “seasonal darkening.” conjured – but the vegetation idea survived.
6 By building a model of a biological Mars, Strughold sought to enable future astronauts to travel there, discover life, capture it, study it, and then use it to colonize, militarize, and even terraform the planet.
Photo of USAF Mars Jars, 1957. Air Force Historical Research Agency.
When new observations turned up bad news for plants – a experiments were about assessing whether lichens and lack of chlorophyll and a lack of oxygen plants produce microbes on Mars could be harnessed to construct a on Earth – the vegetation hypothesis adapted. Russian self-sustaining U.S. military base as part of Cold War astronomer Gavriil Tikhov argued that simple, hardy competition with the Soviet Union. vegetation like lichens that grow in cold, thin, and dry mountain environments still fit the bill, and were likely This obscure history reminds us that simulations or models similar to what was growing on Mars. This was the of other planetary environments always also contain plans state of thinking about life on Mars when Strughold for these places. By building a model of a biological Mars, arrived in Texas after the Second World War. European Strughold sought to enable future astronauts to travel and American astronomers, straining to see through there, discover life, capture it, study it, and then use it to increasing large telescopes, and studying spectral colonize, militarize, and even terraform the planet. Built data, seemed to favor Liais’s vegetation hypothesis in to the original Mars Jar was this insidious idea that any from 1860. My survey of the Library’s collection of books life discovered there should be harnessed for human about Mars written between 1940 and 1950 revealed purposes. This forgoes any consideration of ethical that virtually all astronomers believed there was life on concerns about how we ought to treat extraterrestrial Mars, and that this life was vegetation similar to lichens. biology and skips right to the assumption that alien life would be ours to collect, study, and use. Even though modern Mars Jars now model our more up- to-date understanding of the Red Planet, it is important Recovering this early military moment in astrobiology to remember that Strughold’s first simulations of life-on- highlights the normally taken-for-granted relationship Mars were meant to mimic this older idea of a Green between models, plans, and action in a new critical and Red Planet. The prospect that Mars could harbor light. It opens up a space to rethink our assumed natural biological resources was appealing to Strughold relationship with any extraterrestrial microbes we might and his German colleague rocket designer Wernher von one day find on the surface of Mars, in the clouds of Braun, as they both imagined large American military Venus, or in the ocean on Europa. The Green and Red expeditions to the planet. When Strughold proposed Planet in Strughold’s Mars Jar reveals that these tiny and built the first Mars Jar for the Air Force, he wasn’t models, wherever they appear, contain grand and interested in settling century old debates about the specific visions of human involvement in space. plurality of worlds, or answering the Big Question of “Are Jordan Bimm was a research fellow in residence at the Linda Hall Library We Alone?” As USAF reports plainly state, the Mars Jar during 2018-2019.
7 Collections
Printing Technology and the Technology of Print BY JAMIE E.CUMBY, Assistant Curator of Rare Books & Manuscripts and JASON W. DEAN, Vice President for Special Collections
s you read this newsletter, you are utilizing an ancient technology. Ubiquitous as the printed Aword is, it is easy to forget that printing is the result of several technologies, each developed independently over many centuries, that were brought together to produce another technology: printing.
Science historian James Burke’s 1978 series, Connections, noted our dependence on commonplace technologies, especially those used for communication, and our casual propensity for overlooking the predecessor technologies that combined to produce the many and varied communication devices we take for granted today.
Given the erroneous history that has been taught to generations of schoolchildren, it is not surprising that the widespread belief that printing appeared sui generis to replace handwriting in 15th century Europe persists. But the ability to print words and images on paper multiple times using pieces of type cast from molten metal was not “invented” in Europe but rather was preceded by other separate technologies that were developed in Asia centuries earlier. The Asian technologies eventually migrated westward with explorers, crusaders, traders, and missionaries. Despite the popular “lone genius” narrative, printing with movable type was the inevitable result of a series of discoveries and inventions that Image of a vatman gathering stuff (paper fiber suspended in water) on a paper predated Johannes Gutenberg and his contemporaries mould, leaf 24 from Jihē Kunisaki, 紙漉重寶記 [Kamisuki Chōhōki], Osaka, 1824. by at least two thousand years.
The predecessor technologies that were assembled by Gutenberg to make printing available in Europe included the abilities to produce paper and ink in large quantities and to cast type, and the adaptation of presses formerly used to make wine or bind books.
8 Dark black printing ink with annotations in iron gall ink on leaf A7 recto from Johann von Cube, Gart der Gesundheit, Mainz, 1485. PRINTING TECHNOLOGY TIMELINE Paper The earliest paper used as c. 4000 BCE - Clay tablets used a writing medium appeared for writing cuneiform script in China around 8 BCE c. 3200 BCE - Earliest and was made from hemp. archaeological evidence of metal The first documented casting, in Mesopotamia cases of printing on paper c. 3000 BCE - Egyptian occurred in China and craftsmen write on papyrus with Korea as early as 200 CE water-based ink Early Asian papers were c. 700 BCE made from the inner bark - Earliest examples of metal stamping, for minting coins fibers of plants, soaked, cooked, rinsed, and beaten to c. 200 BCE - King Eumenes II form a pulp that became paper. of Pergamum said to have invented parchment
Papermaking came to Europe from Asia via the Middle East in the 12th c. 140 BCE - Earliest surviving century, and its manufacture relied on a steady supply of waste cloth, examples of Chinese paper generally rags made of hemp or flax (eventually cotton) instead of plant c. mid-1st century CE - Pliny bark. These rags were cleaned through a fermentation process that made the Elder describes the recently the fibers softer and allowed for the papermakers to remove impurities. After invented direct-screw press this fermentation process, the rags were beaten to separate the fibers and c. 4th century CE - Iron gall suspend them in water. This pulp, a mixture of fibers, gelatin, and water was ink invented constantly mixed to ensure even distribution of the fibers on the mould – a 7th-8th centuries - Printing with screen stretched between pieces of wood. The fibers were collected evenly on wooden blocks invented in China the mould, allowed to drip dry and then transferred to pieces of felt. The damp c. 700-750 paper and felt were then pressed to remove excess water, and the pages - First paper mill established in Samarkand were hung to dry. Papermaking techniques remained unchanged until the 19th century, when wood pulp paper replaced paper made from linen or flax. 794 - First paper making factory established in Baghdad
Ink 800 - Oldest surviving example of Printing on a large scale demanded the creation of a suitable ink. The Islamic paper made in Damascus comparatively quick-drying ink widely used for writing was much different 868 - Date of earliest extant from ink required for printing. Printing ink had to remain wet enough to printed book, the Diamond Sūtra, be picked up on ink balls, sticky enough to adhere to the raised surface printed in Dunhuang, China of the standing type, and fast-drying enough to prevent smudging while c. 1045 - Bi Sheng, a Chinese apprentices, sometimes called printers’ devils, whisked freshly printed craftsman, invents the first set of sheets off of the press. The ink in the earliest printed books was made movable types, made from clay from a combination of linseed oil and lampblack collected from the soot of c. 12th century - Korean burning resins. Gutenberg’s successor, Peter Schöffer, perfected this type printmakers begin carving individual of ink, which fell out of wide use by the middle 1500’s. Again, examples of wooden movable types the rich black ink can be seen in the collection – especially in our Gart der 1150 - Earliest European paper Gesundheit printed in 1485. factory, in Spain 9 Collections
Press punch. This punch is then used By the mid-15th century, the mechanism for transferring to stamp the character into a images onto paper, the press itself, already existed in piece of copper. After stamping, a few different forms. Notably, wooden presses that this piece of copper is referred to operated using a screw mechanism were used in wine as a matrix. The matrix is placed production as well as in bookbinding. The wooden, hand- at the bottom of a mould, and a operated printing press in Gutenberg’s Mainz workshop mixture of molten metals (lead, was not the first press created explicitly for printing. As tin, and antimony) is poured early as the 14th century in Europe and the seventh into the mould. The combination century in China, printers used a single wood block, of metals used for typecasting carved with an image and, occasionally, accompanying is fast-cooling, so that many text to make simple xylographic books and playing cards. hundreds of characters might be The wooden spindle was replaced relatively quickly with made in a single day – literally a metal one that created less friction, but the basic design “cast” out of the two interlocking Illustration of a letter punch, used in the creation of a type of the hand press remained stable until the advent of pieces of the type mould nearly as matrix, from Theodore Low Devinne, The Practice of iron presses in the 19th century. Later developments by soon as the metal is poured. The Typography, New York: 1902. printers, such as the two-pull printing press, led to even casting process can be repeated further efficiencies in printing, allowing for more effective an almost infinite number of times to create the desired distribution of pressure and a more consistent impression. number of characters required for a given printing project. The finished character is trimmed and aligned to Type ensure readability and that it will be of a uniform height. Block printing from wood, ivory, or stone was a very Gutenberg’s typefaces mimicked manuscript scribal effective method of printing the same text or image hands, as did many early books. Early printers Nicolas repeatedly. But block printing was not a useful technique Jenson and Aldus Manutius introduced Roman typefaces, for printing books whose pages each contained designed to mimic the hand cut letters in the stonework of different texts. The invention of metal movable type was Roman monuments. These typefaces quickly superseded Gutenberg’s great improvement over earlier methods the blackletter types used by Gutenberg in most of of Chinese and Korean block printing. Drawing on his western Europe outside of Germany. background as a goldsmith, Gutenberg created a system for casting individual pieces of type. In his process, used It is useful to think of early printed books as evidence, until the advent of Monotype casting in the 19th century, not just of the dissemination of important ideas, but of punch with the desired character and size at the tip of the what was, at the time, a state-of-the-art communication
Comparison of (on left) blackletter type, mimicking 15th century scribal hands from Anglicus Bartholomaeus, De Proprietatibus Rerum, Nuremberg, Anton Koberger, 1483, leaf A7 verso; and Roman type, from Pliny’s Naturalis Historia, Venice, Nicholas Jenson, 1472, leaf A5 recto. 10 technology. The Library collects works about printing and books because PRINTING of print’s status as an important technology, and the History of Science TECHNOLOGY collection holds notable exemplars that show this technology’s growth and TIMELINE (continued) development. When we look at an early printed book, we are seeing words on a page, and we are also seeing early paper, early types, early presswork, 1236 - Earliest European paper mill and a multitude of other features of the book world. outside of Spain, in Fabriano, Italy
The histories of print and the book are bound up in the history of science, 1282 - Earliest surviving piece of watermarked paper, from a both for how print has contributed to the spread of controversial new ideas or Fabriano mill spurred dialogue across time and space, but also because print represents early adventures in mass production and technological innovation. 1377 – South Korean Monks at the Heungdeoska temple print the first book using metal movable types Further Reading: If you are interested to learn more about the technologies of printing and c. 1430s - German goldsmiths book production, we encourage you to read Dr. Sarah Werner’s recent book, begin producing prints from engraved plates Studying Early Printed Books,1450-1800: a Practical Guide which gives an eminently readable overview of the production of early printed books. c. 1439 - Johannes Gutenberg The Library owns a copy of the book for use by our readers in addition to begins his experiments with movable type and screw presses numerous other texts examining the history of printing and books. c. 1444-1448 - Gutenberg returns to Mainz, refining his printing methods Diagram depicting parts of a single character of type, from Theodore 1450 - Gutenberg borrows Low Devinne, The Practice of 800 guilders from Mainz lawyer Typography, New York: 1902. Johannes Fust
1452 - Gutenberg takes out a second loan of 800 guilders from Fust, and Fust becomes an official partner on the project
1454 - Johannes Gutenberg prints a 31-line indulgence, issued in Erfurt, the earliest surviving text printed with movable punch-matrix type
c. 1452-1455 - Printing of the 42-line, Gutenberg Bible
1470 - Nicolas Jenson, a Frenchman working in Venice, prints the first book using Roman types
11 A Fuegian hut, from John Hawkesworth, An account of the voyages undertaken for making discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere, 1773.
BY WILLIAM B. ASHWORTH, JR. The Beagle Library Consultant for the History of Science
hen HMS Beagle, commanded by Robert Fitzroy, set off for South America in the fall of 1831, it carried not only Charles Darwin, Wwould-be naturalist, but a research library of over 400 volumes, carefully stored in cases in the poop cabin where Darwin would sleep and spend his working days. The library was put together by Fitzroy with the help of his officers and probably Darwin, and it was dispersed upon the Beagle’s return in 1836, so the Beagle Library no longer exists. Moreover, there is no surviving catalog or list of the books it contained, so consulting that library might seem to be a problem. However, Darwin made many references in his notebooks and later writings that have made it possible to identify the books he consulted on the voyage, and over the years the contributors to the Darwin Online website have gradually built up a list of 12 RIGHT: Diodon porcupine fish from Louis de Freycinet, Voyage autour du monde… sur les corvettes de S.M. l'Uranie et la Physicienne pendant les années 1817, 1818, 1819 et 1820, 1824-39 Histoire naturelle zoologie, Planches, 1824.
180 titles comprising 404 Another much-consulted work volumes that were probably in was the narrative of James the Beagle Library, and they have Cook’s first voyage around the subsequently scanned those titles, world, written by John Hawkesworth being careful to use the same editions that and published in 1773. The volume of plates the Beagle carried. The result is a virtual Beagle Library surely attracted Darwin’s attention, with its illustrations of that can be consulted by Darwinian scholars or by any the flora, fauna, and peoples of Tahiti, New Zealand, and interested inquirer. Australia. He might have come upon the engraving of a family in Tierra de Fuego, where the Beagle was bound, The Linda Hall Library is a physical library, and while carrying on board three Fuegians who had been brought we acknowledge that there is plenty of room for virtual back to England by Fitzroy on a previous voyage and libraries in today’s world, we like physical books that were being returned to their native land. one can hold and peruse. Over the years, we have slowly attempted to assemble our own Beagle Library A more recent voyage was that of Louis de Freycinet, of actual books, identical in print to those carried on the who set out on L’Uranie to circumnavigate the world Beagle. We are only about a quarter of the way there, in 1817, carrying with him two competent naturalists, and since many of the books in the Beagle Library Joseph Paul Gaimard and Jean Rene Constant Quoy. were not scientific and would be out of scope for us, The Zoologie volume of the narrative, published in 1824 we will never be able to complete the library. But we BELOW: Detail of yellows, from Patrick Syme, Werner’s Nomenclature of have already put together an impressive collection for Colours with Additions, arranged so as to render it highly useful to the arts and scholars who are curious about Darwin’s sources and sciences, 2nd ed, 1821. want to sit down and examine them in person.
We thought on this occasion we would showcase some of the books in our Beagle Library, and reproduce some of the illustrations from these books, images that Darwin would have seen as he used the library. Not surprisingly, many of the books were accounts of earlier scientific voyages and expeditions. One of these was Alexander von Humboldt’s Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent, published in English in seven volumes from 1819 to 1829. Young Darwin admired Humboldt more than any other exploring naturalist and was greatly inspired by Humboldt’s expedition to the Orinoco region of South America and to the Andes in 1799-1804. Many of Darwin’s collecting habits were patterned after those of Humboldt. Humboldt’s drawing of Mt. Chimborazo, with the ecological regions for each plant indicated, was a clever new kind of graphic that must have excited Darwin, with his interest in biogeography. 13 and onboard the Beagle, contained gorgeous hand- data, but also announced the invention of a new wet- colored plates of a variety of marine life, including one bulb hygrometer for measuring relative humidity. plate showing, among other fish, a blue diodon, or Patrick Symes Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours: with porcupine fish. In his later narrative of the voyage, Darwin Additions, arranged so as to render it highly useful tells us that when he first reached South America, he to the arts and sciences (1814), was a book on color experimented with a diodon, turning it upside down to nomenclature, defining such descriptive hues as lemon see if it could swim while inverted. Possibly he identified yellow or imperial purple, so that naturalists might have his fish from the Freycinet volume on board. standards of comparison for colors. Darwin clearly used this book, for in his narrative of the voyage, he But the Beagle had other works besides narratives described how a cuttlefish changed its color from of exploration – a variety of books intended to assist hyacinth red to chestnut brown and referred the reader a scientific expedition.Meteorological Essays and to Symes book for the meaning of those terms. The Observations (1823), by John Frederic Daniell, not Beagle carried the second edition (1821) onboard; we only provided a basic guide to collecting weather have both editions in our collections.
There is no better way to revisit the voyage of the Beagle than to sit down with this collection and try to imagine viewing it through the eyes of Charles Darwin, a naturalist in training about to encounter the world.
LEFT: Wet-bulb hygrometer from John Frederic Daniell, Meteorological Essays and Observations, 1823. RIGHT: Goshawk from John Richardson, Fauna Boreali- Americana, 1829-37, Vol. 2: Swainson on Birds, 1831. 14 Beluga whale, drawn by Patrick Syme, from William Scoresby, Jr., An Account of the Arctic Regions, with a History and Description of the Northern Whale-Fishery, 1820.
The Beagle Library contained a number of handbooks he pretty much had to wait until he returned home to and guides to the animals and plants of the world. identify his finds. The basic work was George Cuvier’s Le règne animal distribué d’après son organisation (The Animal One surprising book in the Beagle Library was An Account Kingdom arranged in conformity with its organization, of the Arctic Regions, with a History and Description of the 4 vols, 1817), but there were many others. One of the Northern Whale-Fishery (1820), by William Scoresby, Jr. – most recently published was John Richardson’s Fauna surprising because Fitzroy had no intention of venturing Boreali-Americana (1829-37). The first volume, on into Arctic waters. But Darwin read the account – we mammals, had been published in 1829; the second know this because he referred to it numerous times in his volume, on birds, written by William Swainson, did not notebooks. Perhaps he noticed the beautiful engraving of come out until 1831 and barely made it aboard the a Beluga whale, which Scoresby tells us was created in Beagle. This volume would have exposed Darwin to the June of 1815 and was drawn by none other than Patrick attractions of hand-colored lithographs for illustrating Syme, author of the Beagle’s book on color nomenclature. birds. The bird volume of his later Zoology of the Beagle That is one of the nice things about physical books – cross would include hand-colored lithographs executed by connections like this one can be checked and established Elizabeth Gould. at once, just by pulling both books from the shelves.
Interestingly, while the Beagle Library contained three We have 49 works in our collections that are identical different editions of George Cuvier’s Le règne animal, to books in the Beagle Library, comprising some 87 it had no edition whatsoever of Cuvier’s Recherches volumes. This does not include many issues of natural sur les ossemens fossiles (Researches on fossil bones) history and geological journals that were onboard the (1812; 2nd ed., 1821-24 ), the basic guide to fossil Beagle and are also in our serials collection. There is quadrupeds, suggesting that neither Fitzroy nor Darwin no better way to revisit the voyage of the Beagle than to were much interested in fossils before they embarked. sit down with this collection and try to imagine viewing So, when Darwin chanced on the fossil remains of a it through the eyes of Charles Darwin, a naturalist in Megatherium and several other extinct quadrupeds, training about to encounter the world. 15 Meet a Supporter
Transforming the Library: Connecting to Community Year 1.5 BY LISA M. BROWAR, President
16 he Linda Hall Library is a distinctive Kansas City cultural asset that is recognized globally for its Tunique collections consisting of rare books and an unsurpassable assemblage of scientific journals and other serial publications. There is nothing else like it in Kansas City and it is difficult to identify comparable institutions elsewhere. Despite its international renown, the Library has not been as well-known in Kansas City, where it has often been referred to as a “hidden jewel.”
With the goal of building the Linda Hall Library’s reputation regionally, the Library created a three-year strategic plan to strengthen community connections, increase its impact in the Kansas City area, and help propel the metropolitan region to the front rank of scientifically literate places in the United States. The Library’s strategic plan pursues this transformation by building on historic strengths while advancing its contemporary relevance.
Critical elements of Year One included:
• An expansion of public-facing activities that includes a wide range of programs drawing on the Library’s collection, emphasizing contemporary relevance, and attracting audiences of all ages. • The addition of staff who will enhance focus on community outreach and engagement. • Efforts to attract new supporters and sources of funds, promote deeper affiliation with the Library, and ensure sufficient resources to finance the transformation.
On January 8, 2019, Julián Zugazagoitia and Karen Christenson of the Nelson-Atkins visited the Linda Hall Library’s Spencer Room Aided by a grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman to discuss, Gifts from the Nile, the companion show created in Foundation, the strategic plan’s first year began on conjunction with the exhibition Queen Nefertari: Eternal Egypt. Julián and Karen reviewed a selection of Library items, pictured above. August 1, 2019 and was scheduled to conclude on
The Library’s partnership with the Nelson-Atkins Museum July 31, 2020. The first six months’ efforts were yielding continues to grow as we collaborate on future projects to positive results when the world suddenly went quiet. introduce our respective user groups to each other’s engaging collections and programming. The region-wide mandated shutdown in March brought
BACKGROUND: Illustration demonstrating calculations for refraction the Library’s operations and programming plans to a and reflection from William Herschel’sCommonplace Book, 1759. standstill. But not for long.
17 Watercolor and wash illustration of seasons and zodiacal signs from the manuscript, J. Beck’s Astronomer, William L. Sennert’s Book, 1826.
Existing Library programs were swiftly moved to the • More than 500 participants age 40 or under to LHL virtual platform, while new virtual programs were public programs created to fill a suddenly enlarged public appetite for • Appointed the first scholar-in-residence from the content. Our quarantined audiences quickly embraced KC metro region virtual programming and this success indicated that a • A 196% increase in new active donors mid-year reconsideration of the Library’s programming • An increase of 138% of new major donor households strategies was needed. • Completion of a rebranding project set to launch in 2021 With the Kauffman Foundation’s approval, the Library extended the project’s first year creating time to Of course, we eagerly anticipate the day when we reconsider its near- and long-term programming future. can welcome audiences back to the Library in safety. Year One will now end on December 31, 2020; the But for the moment, the response to our reengineered strategic plan’s second year will begin January 1, 2021. and expanded programming has been gratifying. The feedback from our audiences has informed As we approach the end of the strategic plan’s first year programming decisions as we eagerly move forward and a half, some impressive successes are evident. with Year Two plans. We look forward to offering Among them: new interactive learning opportunities along with our signature programs. With hard work and guidance from • Collaborations with six regional organizations our audience, the Linda Hall Library will no longer be • More than 300 first-time participants to LHL an under-valued asset, but rather will be recognized as collaborative events another jewel in Kansas City’s crown. 18 The Boy from Oz (continued from page 2) using baking soda and vinegar in our J: I want to work for NASA and backyard to make a mini volcano. ideally do aeronautical engineering – I also did an experiment on how building and designing rockets! I also plants grow by trying to grow plants want to work for LEGO and be the in the dark, without good soil, without second LEGO Certified Professional water, and even one in the fridge! in the Southern Hemisphere.
H: Is there an area of science that H: How will your interest in science especially interests you? help you achieve these ambitions?
J: I am especially interested in J: You need to know a lot of science astrophysics, chemistry, and (particularly physics and chemistry) meteorology. Right now, I am and math to work for NASA. To studying nanotechnology and be a LEGO designer it’s important astrophysics with much older to know about numbers, spatial students as part of the John Monash designing, and multiplication. I’m Science School which is connected still learning new things in many to Monash University in Melbourne. areas of science every day, and this When I think of science, I constantly will help my ambitions. question how things work, why things work the way they do. For instance, H: What other activities do you enjoy chemistry, space, physics, LEGO, in your spare time? Become a Meteorologist” and it engineering, geology, meteorology, was fascinating! Since then, I have and the study of natural disasters. J: In my spare time, I love building attended the program featuring Phil LEGO and have exhibited my own McAlister who works for NASA, and H: Do you have a science mentor? designs at Brickvention 2019 and I have even written a letter to him 2020, Australia’s premier LEGO fan through Eric Ward (Vice President J: I learn a lot about science through convention (www.brickventures.com/ for Programs). Also, my family and In2science, a peer mentoring program index.php/brickvention). I also really I really enjoyed the Linda Hall quiz run through La Trobe University, The enjoy playing with Tahlia, running night (which was in the morning for University of Melbourne, Swinburne around and swimming at the beach, us!). The quiz night taught me a lot of University of Technology, RMIT, and spending time with my friends, science history and mostly it taught Monash University. The program is building science kits, singing with me that I have a lot more to learn! designed for high school students, ARC Children’s Virtual Choir, and but my school (Virtual School Victoria) with my singing teacher Jon; learning It has been a pleasure for us to nominated me to do the program tennis with my awesome coach make this impressive young man’s because I am so interested in science. Nicole, and playing soccer! acquaintance over the past few My sessions run on Zoom with my months. Although he lives on the eMentor, Steph. Steph is in her final H: How did you learn about the other side of the globe, Joshua is year of Zoology at La Trobe University, Linda Hall Library? an active member of the Linda Hall and she is the best mentor I could Library’s international community and ever want! J: My mum heard about the Linda as long as he continues to soak up Hall Library on a Facebook group science knowledge like a sponge, H: If you could be anything at all, what for parents in Australia! I joined in the Linda Hall Library will be here to do you want to be when you grow up? the online program about “How to quench his thirst for information. 19 LINDA HALL LIBRARY
HEDGEHOGNUMBER 66 • Fall 2020
5109 Cherry Street Kansas City, Missouri 64110
The Fall 2020 issue shows an illustration of a hedgehog from Volume 8 of Georges-Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon’s Histoire naturelle (1760). You can browse all 44 volumes of this natural history encyclopedia by visiting the Linda Hall Library’s History of Science Collection.
HEDGEHOG is published twice a year by The Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering & Technology On the cover: Engraving showing type being set in a composing room, with printed pages drying above. www.lindahall.org Below are individual characters of type, type in a composing stick, and standing type. From Denis Diderot, Recueil de planches, sur les sciences, les arts libéraux, et les arts méchaniques, avec leur explication, Paris, 1769, v. 7. Engraving title: “The printing shop in letters, operating the type case.”
Transitions (continued from page 3)
Grounds, and Information Technology staffs. Through 2008, Brian was in the Kansas Army National Guard, the years she became a valued colleague and friend spending sixteen months deployed to Iraq in support to many on the Library’s staff. Paula and her husband, of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Lewis, have taken up sailing in recent years and look forward to the years ahead sailing on the waters in Jamie Cumby Missouri, Kansas, and Virginia. Jamie Cumby is the Library’s Assistant Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts. Jamie comes to the Linda Hall Controller Lisa Crawford retired on December 31, 2019 Library from Connecticut’s Pequot Library where she after 12 years of service. was Special Collections Librarian. Jamie earned her undergraduate degree at Wellesley, and her doctorate at Cynthia Rogers the University of St. Andrews. She is currently completing Cynthia Rogers concluded a long career at the Linda degree requirements for a Master of Library and Hall Library on May 31, 2020. Cindy, as she was Information Science at the University of Illinois. An expert known to all, served as the History of Science Center’s in the history of books and printing, Jamie began her new Senior Research Specialist, and was widely praised role on September 1, 2020. for her knowledge about the collection and her ability to speak with both assurance and enthusiasm when Michele Knight showcasing items from the collections to members of Michele Knight is the Library’s first Senior Vice President the public. for Engagement. In this newly created position, Michele has oversight responsibilities for the Library’s Public Brian Walton Programming, Communications, and Development Brian Walton arrived on January 20, 2020 to begin his Departments. Before coming to the Linda Hall Library, new responsibilities as the Library’s Chief Financial Michele was the Senior Vice President for Development Officer. A certified public accountant, Brian spent at the United Way of Greater Kansas City, Department seven years at St. Luke’s Hospital, most recently Leader, Experiential Marketing and Strategic Events at as its Foundation’s Chief Financial Officer. Prior to Sprint, and Vice President for Sales and Marketing for his work at St. Luke’s, Brian was a member of the PGA Tour Experiences. Michele’s first day at the Library assurance staff at Rubin Brown, LLP. From 2003 to was July 1, 2020. 20