NO. 115: MARCH 2018

ISSN: 1751-8261 MAGAZINE OF THE BRITISH SOCIETY FOR THE

Contents

Science in the Himalaya 1-3

Great Trigonometrical Survey 4-6

Poetry & Cartography 7-10

Ancient Volcanoes 11-13

Northern Exploration 13-14

Interview – Erin Beetson 15

BJHS, Viewpoint, BSHS info. 16

Editorial

I Histories of space and place are increas- inly hot topics, so this issue features current research from trailblazers in the history of geography. Lachlan Fleet- wood leads the way with an examina- tion of the Himalaya as sites and sub- ABOVE Section from Heinrich Berghaus’s Umrisse der Pflanzengeographie (1838). Map- jects of 19th-century science (1), while ping people, , , and fossils in three dimensions was essential to making the Keith Lilley takes us out into the field to Himalaya into a unit that could compared with other parts of the vertical globe. explore the archaeology of the Great Image: courtesy of the David Rumsey Map Collection, www.davidrumsey.com. Trigonometrical Survey of India (4). Travelling further back in time, Kader Hegedüs examines the relationship Place and Space on High: between John Donne’s poetry and Renaissance cartography (7), while Jason König and Dawn Hollis consider Science in the Himalaya volcanoes in classical georgaphical and cultural landscapes (11). Lachlan Fleetwood explores the science of mountains. Finally, Linda Andersson Burnett investigates ’s interest in northern periphery exploration (13). We Few places have captured European distance exactly resembled men; and the also have an interview with Manches- romantic, imperial, and scientific imagina- instant my people observed them, they ter PhD student Erin Beetson (15), and tions more fully than the Himalaya. While said they were the Tartars waiting for notices of upcoming events (3). exploring near the frontier with Tibet in me; I thought the same, as they had a This issue has been co-edited with 1821 in pursuit of these ends, East India very suspicious appearance from below, Hazel Blair, who will take over as View- Company surveyor Alexander Gerard and I could not divest myself of the point Editor next issue. Contributions found himself becoming increasingly belief (although the guides assured should be sent to [email protected]. paranoid: me that they were shughars) till I looked uk by 15 April 2018. through the glass. Upon the surrounding heights near Hazel Blair and Alice White, Editors the Pass are many shughars or piles of Fears assuaged by the deployment of stones sacred to the gods, and which at a his telescope, Gerard admitted some 2 Viewpoint No. 115

ABOVE “The Snowy Range from Tyne or Marma,” from George Francis White’s Views in India (1838). A European traveller gazes out at the Himalaya in this typically heroic and romantic image, but the porters in the foreground inadvertently reveal his dependence on local labour, routes, and expertise. Image: Public hopes of penetrating further into what In my current research, the high spaces have to tell for the first half of the 19th was becoming one of the most pressing of the Himalaya and their mountainous century, when they were becoming both ‘blank spaces’ on European maps. These topography, social and cultural geogra- subjects and spaces of scientific practice. were quickly dashed, however, as he phy, and and non-human dimen- Gerard’s conflation of shughars and crossed the altitude sickness-inducing sions are cast in protagonistic roles. In border guards reflects the East India high pass only to meet a group of Tartars this article, I take the opportunity to Company’s growing insecurity around – real, this time, rather than imaginary – outline some of the stories the Himalaya the lack of knowledge of the vast and who had learned he was coming and vertiginous mountains that made up were waiting to politely but firmly send their northern frontier. This ignorance, him back to the lowlands. Moments like combined with growing concerns about this are revealing of the limits of imperial Russian and Chinese activities on the mastery in the high mountains, while the High mountain other side of the mountains, saw the shughars, which served as both waymark- Himalaya take on the characteristics of ers and shrines, simultaneously remind cartographic ‘blank space,’ a rendering us that these had long been lived and environments which was important not just in clearing inscribed landscapes. away indigenous presences in prepara- tested the tion for European aesthetic and imperial SITES OF SCIENCE appropriation, but also in compelling Recognition of the situatedness of relationships scientific exploration. scientific practice and attention to space It was only in the 1810s that it was and place is now ubiquitous in the history becoming acknowledged – first in India of science. Building on this, scholars have between instru- by lowly military surveyors, later (and not productively used geographical features without some doubt and even outrage) like oceans, islands, and beaches as sites ments, authority by savants in Europe – that the Himalaya and scales for global histories of science, were, in fact, the highest mountains on and to disrupt older national and area and bodily the globe, far higher even than Alexander studies framings, though mountains have von Humboldt’s Chimborazo. only recently begun to receive equiva- Just how much higher took some lently extensive attention. performance. grasping. Commenting on a new type of Viewpoint No. 115 3

thermometer for measuring altitude, one Spanning some 2,400 kilometres in that had been tested on Mount Snowdon a roughly crescent shaped band across in Wales before being sent out to India, Asia, the Himalaya are one of the most Notices oriental scholar James Prinsep was exas- striking geographical features of our perated to find that as the range of its planet, though this scale would not ESHS Conference 2018 scale ‘only extends to an altitude of 5405 necessarily have been meaningful or th feet, it is evidently quite insufficient for useful to those who who made their The 8 European Society for the the traveller in India, who may ascend to in the mountains. Here, even the idea History of Science (ESHS) Biennial 18,000 feet and still see Snowdons tower- of studying ‘the Himalaya’ as a space of Conference will be held in London ing above his head.’ scientific practice perhaps reflects ves- from 14-17 September 2018. tiges of an older romantic, orientalist, and The conference – which is being ALTITUDE SICKNESS imperial fascination with Asia’s notori- organised in conjunction with the Accurately measuring altitude had ously ‘mysterious’ and ‘exotic’ mountains British Society for the History of Sci- not been especially important before – though these framings, too, have ence – will be held at University Col- the late-18th century, but was becoming their histories. lege London’s Institute of Education. essential to both imperial cartography Whatever the early tropes casting the The conference theme this year is and to sciences like and Himalaya as impenetrable, they were ‘Unity and Disunity’. Registration will geology. Measuring the Himalaya was – and long had been – highly porous. open on 1 May. nevertheless a vexed business, not only Extensive networks had operated within More details can be found on because of inadequate and easily dam- and through the mountains for millennia the website: http://www.eshs.org/ aged instruments, but also because in prior to European interest, and imperial Oct-2017-8th-ESHS-Conference-Lon- high mountain spaces scale is difficult to science and exploration in the Himalaya don-2018.html. judge and the senses are untrustworthy. advanced by following the routes and John Anthony Hodgson, one of the first advice of residents, traders, migrants, surveyor generals of India, bemoaned and pilgrims. that ‘whether it be from the changes in Meanwhile, the Himalaya had also long Visiting Fellowship: Oxford the atmosphere on high mountains, or been central to the imaginations of South the inconvenience of being exposed to Asians more broadly, holding key places The Centre for the History and severe cold & high winds, I find my obser- in both Buddhist and Hindu cosmology, Philosophy of Physics (HAPP) at St vations never agree a fourth part so well and playing, for example, important roles Cross College, University of Oxford as on the plains.’ in the Mahabharata and the Puranas. is able to offer one Visiting Fellow- While these spaces might ultimately The term ‘Himalaya’ has its etymology in ship a term for scholars coming to have been less idiosyncratic than survey- Sanskrit, and is often translated as ‘abode Oxford to carry out research on a ors inevitably insisted they were, high of snow,’ a description that is nevertheless topic in the history and philosophy mountain environments nevertheless only intermittently apt given that vast of physics. tested the relationships between instru- swathes of the mountains are formed of Visiting Fellowships carry full ments, authority and bodily performance. high-altitude deserts. membership of the College with Alongside problems of scale and sen- As with James Prinsep’s reference to use of all its facilities and Visiting sory derangement, the highest spaces Snowdon, invoking other mountains was Fellows are required to be based in were marked by physiological travails. In a standard trope, and travellers could not Oxford for the term in which they 1821, Alexander’s brother James Gilbert ascend the Himalaya without drawing hold the position. Gerard stood at 15,000 feet and noted on imperial networks to compare them, Details on how to apply can be that ‘the scene is therefore of unap- especially to the Alps and the Andes. found on the webpage: www.stx. proachable grandeur,’ a typical recourse Recognition that high mountains were ox.ac.uk/happ/scholarships-visiting- to the picturesque and the sublime. He commensurate environments meant that fellowships-and-prizes. went on to describe the many and debili- plants, people, and fossils increasingly tating symptoms of altitude sickness had to be located on a globe that was afflicting him, concluding that he had vertical as well as round. ‘never experienced so decided a proof of In imagining the Himalaya as whole, the existence of an agent inimical to the naturalists also adopted related frame- Exhibition: Ceaseless Motion principles of .’ And yet, even works of comparison, designating the as they were gasping for breath, other various vertical zones as tropical, temper- The 17th-century physician and travellers found themselves marvelling ate, and arctic, and in turn subsumed the anatomist William Harvey spent his at whirling lazily in the rarefied air mountains into a global framework of life researching circulation. above. European science. Only occasionally was His experiments were revolu- it acknowledged that this language of tionary: blood was not ‘cooked’ in LIVED LANDSCAPES latitude was being written over existing the liver, as had previously been Alexander Gerard noted elsewhere that South Asian cosmologies, indigenous thought, but circulated around the ‘the Koonawurees and Tartars estimate topographies, and other longstanding body from the heart. the altitudes of the passes, by the dif- conceptions of space. A new exhibition at the Royal Col- ficulty of breathing they experience in lege of Surgeons in London dissects ascending them,’ a reminder that if these Harvey’s work, life, and legacy. were uncertain spaces for early European Lachlan Fleetwood Ceaseless Motion runs until 26 July explorers then they were, of course, University of Cambridge 2018. See: www.rcplondon.ac.uk. coherent places to those who lived there. [email protected] 4 Viewpoint No. 115

Following in Everest’s footsteps: exploring the legacies of the Great Trigonometrical Survey Keith Lilley uncovers the material remains of geodetic endeavour in 19th-century India.

Two hundred years ago, on 1 January the local landscapes traversed by the as superintendent in 1823, becoming Sur- 1818, the Great Trigonometrical Survey surveyors two centuries ago. While the veyor General of India between 1830 and (GTS) of India was granted its official history of the GTS is well-known through 1843. During that time, the operational name. For over six decades, the GTS its historical archives and accounts, as yet focus of the GTS was Kolkata (formerly surveyors travelled India, meticulously its ‘archaeology’ is an underexplored field. Calcutta) and it was to here that Everest and accurately measuring and survey- Studying the fabric and of the tow- returned in 1830 following his sojourn in ing the subcontinent using a network of ers reveals valuable insights into the con- England after an illness contracted while triangles. In 1856, using the surveyors’ struction methods and techniques used surveying the Great Arc around Sironj. observations as a basis, the height of by the GTS to create this infrastructure, At the time the earth’s highest mountain was which is otherwise largely neglected. of his depar- determined. ture, Ever- By 1871, their ‘geodetic’ framework TEMPLES OF TRIGONOMETRY est had left was complete, and from it the detailed The trigonometrical observations instruction and systematic mapping of India was undertaken by the GTS relied on a net- for a team of achieved. But these are not the only lega- work of survey stations. Some stations experienced cies of the GTS. Other enduring and tan- used hilltops, others used existing struc- surveyors, includ- gible outcomes of this great enterprise tures such as temples and semaphores, ing Joseph are still visible across India – tall towers but in the flatter areas of the plains it Olliver, Wil- built by the surveyors to undertake their became necessary to build bespoke tow- liam Rossen- observations in the field for the purposes ers on which to place the great theodolite rode, Murray of their great trigonometrical survey. (a precision instrument used for measur- Torrick, and These ‘tower stations’, as the GTS ing both horizontal and vertical angles). John Peyton, described them, are an overlooked legacy Such towers were constructed under to complete of the infrastructure that underpinned George Everest while surveying the Great a new series the Survey of India’s detailed mapping Meridional Arc north of Delhi in the 1840s. of trigono- of the subcontinent. The towers are Everest noted the particular difficulties metrical important reminders of the huge scale presented by this terrain and the need for observa- of the GTS and its material impacts on survey towers to be constructed with an tions elevated platform for the theodolite. extending In his Account of a Measurement of Two eastwards Sections of the Meridional Arc, published from Sironj in 1847, he wrote: to Calcutta, a distance Enduring and These edifices are of a square form at of 684 the base, and average about 50 feet in miles. tangible out- height, in some instances more and in Using others less. The wall at the bottom is 5 a Cary comes of this feet and at the top 2 feet in thickness, 18-inch whence it appears that the interior is in mathematical language a portion of a great enterprise square based prism, and the exterior a are still visible frustum of a square based pyramid. By then, Everest had long-served the across India. GTS, having succeeded William Lambton Viewpoint No. 115 5

ABOVE Index chart to the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India (1870). Image: Public Domain LEFT 3D imaging of the semaphore tower at Nibria (West Bengal), reused by the GTS. Image: Keith Lilley and and Siobhán McDermott

Alt-Azimuth theodolite instrument, the DESIGNING THE TOWERS described by contemporary sources as ‘a surveyors took six years to complete The solution to the difficulties of hollow rectangular tower 75.08 feet high,’ the work, from 1825 to 1831, resulting surveying the flatter landscapes of West replaced an earlier tower constructed in the Calcutta Longitudinal Series. The Bengal was to construct towers, the under Captain Bell, one of Olliver’s team- network of the GTS was thus expanded precursors of those Everest described members, which had collapsed. Indeed, eastwards across the Gangetic plains of and had built for the Great Arc in the the initial survey towers built for the final eastern India. 1840s. The towers’ original design owes sections of the Calcutta Longitudinal This was difficult terrain to survey, much to the activities of the team of Series were ‘put up in rough fashion’. but it was here that the GTS innovated in surveyors engaged with the Calcutta However, on Everest’s return to India in its approach to creating trigonometrical Longitudinal Series. 1830, the series advanced the final 60 stations, largely because Olliver and his To the north-west of Kolkata, one of miles to reach Calcutta, necessitating team struggled with their observations the towers constructed for the series still further discussion on the construction of on the final approaches of the series as stands among the fields near Singur, at the survey towers. they neared Calcutta in December 1829. Bhola. The tall slender brick-built tower, At that time, under Everest’s instruction, 6 Viewpoint No. 115

two towers had also been constructed at the two terminals of the Calcutta Base- line, set out on the Barrackpore Trunk Road in northern Calcutta in 1830-31. Everest in particular is reported to have been ‘specially pleased with the two 75-foot towers built at the extremi- ties of his base-line on the Barrackpore road by the Civil Architect, Mr Parker,’ the measurement of which formed a key element in the survey’s calculations. The scene was captured at the time by James Prinsep, whose drawing [right] shows one of Parker’s towers on the base-line as well as the instruments used in the precise measuring undertaken between the two terminal towers. EVEREST AND PARKER The twin towers of the Calcutta Base- line are now in the hands of the Public Works Department in Kolkata, inscribed with a dedication to Everest. Parker, how- ever, is rather forgotten, yet clearly it was his contribution (in building the towers in Calcutta), that formed the basis for other survey towers in West Bengal, such as the one at Bhola. Indeed, Parker’s was the model used by Everest for his towers of the Great Arc. Surveying Empires, a recent project funded by the British Academy, and led by Queen’s University Belfast, has revealed what remains of these monu- ments to the GTS in the landscapes of West Bengal. From the fieldwork carried out by the Surveying Empires project in 2017 in West Bengal, it is clear that Everest’s lega- cies go far beyond the naming of the Himalayan peak. The GTS ‘tower stations’ that punctuate the landscapes of India provide a rich record of the survey prac- tices employed under Everest. Revealed through these monuments is the mate- riality of geodetic survey, which left its traces on the landscape. TOP James Prinsep’s 1831 illustration of the Calcutta Baseline on the Barrackpore road. Rather than representing a colonial BOTTOM LEFT Elevation and plan of Everest-type tower station. Images: Public Domain vestige to be erased, what became clear B-R The GTS tower at Bhola, beside the Singur to Tarakeswar road. Image: Keith Lilley through the project fieldwork is how far the GTS towers of West Bengal are valued by those living around them. Neverthe- history of science. unfolded over the decades, the survey less, through rapid urbanisation and Careful study of the towers, including and its underpinning network of stations migration, India’s landscape is changing 3D imaging, has begun to show stylistic instead reveal a more fissured enterprise. more than ever before, so these legacies similarities and differences in the survey These tangible legacies of the GTS in of the GTS are under incresing threat. infrastructure of the GTS, with geographi- India are invaluable for what they contrib- Already, some towers in West Bengal cal and chronological variations evident ute to our understanding of one of the have disappeared through urban redevel- in the design and construction of the most significant geodetic exercises of the opment, while others, such as the tower trigonometrical stations. nineteenth century, the Great Trigono- metrical Survey of India. at Samalia, south of Kolkata, are in urgent A HERCULEAN TASK need of conservation. Raising wider For more on the Surveying Empires national and international awareness of While, outwardly, the GTS may appear a project, visit: www.surveyingempires.org. the heritage vaue of the surviving towers monolithic operation – in Everest’s words, is a pressing concern, therefore, particu- ‘the most herculean undertaking on Keith Lilley larly since these momuments represent which any Government ever embarked’ – Queen’s University Belfast such a significant contribution to the in its execution on the ground, as it [email protected] Viewpoint No. 115 7

‘License my roving hands’: Renaissance cartography and the poetry of John Donne

Kader Hegedüs examines creative license in the geographies of the early modern period.

If John Donne (1572-1631) is better known for having claimed that ‘no man is an island’ (Meditation XVII, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, 1624), he also argued that a woman might, in fact, be one:

License my roving hands, and let them go Behind, before, above, between, below! O my America! My new-found land! My , safeliest when with one man manned! My mine of precious stones! My empery! How blessed am I in this discovering thee! ‘To His Mistress Going to Bed’, lines 25-30

This geographical metaphor, linking the female body to an uncharted continent being discovered – and claimed – by an avid explorer, is not unique in Donne’s poetry, and participates in the enthusi- asm he shared with his contemporaries for the new geographies of the Renais- sance. The names given by the explorers Christopher Columbus and Sir Walter Raleigh to new territories in the West Indies, such as the Virginian Islands and the Colony of Virginia, belong to this tradition. But the geographical dimension of Donne’s metaphor here also has a carto- graphical resonance. Indeed, as Claude Gandelman has suggested, the passage cited above may very well be influenced by an extremely popular anthropomor- phic map developed in the sixteenth century that, as its name Europa in forma Virginis suggests, associated the Old Con- tinent with the shape of a virgin. CREATIVE LICENSE In the scope of my research on Donne’s spatial imagination, my interest in early modern maps grew as strong as Donne’s own. But more than his fascination for maps, what struck me most was his very sophisticated take on the close collaboration between cartographical and literary creation. When Donne asks the woman/land to ‘license [his] roving hands’, not only is his character hoping for permission to uncover his mistress’s body, but Donne the poet is also seeking creative license ABOVE Europa in forma Virginis from a 16th-century copy of Sebastian Münster’s for his own penmanship, so that he might Cosmographia. Image: Public Domain. 8 Viewpoint No. 115

THIS PAGE World maps witnessed major transformations in the early modern period. They had to be updated regularly to take new discov- eries into account with increasing precision. But this did not preclude cartographers from producing aestheti- cally pleasing items.

TOP Oronce Finé, Nova, et Integra Universi Orbis De- scriptio (1531).

BELOW Jodocus Hondius’s Vera Totius Expeditionis Nauticae (c.1595). Images: Library of Congress. Viewpoint No. 115 9

represent the landscape in whatever would become – thanks to Edward between eastern and western hemi- way he deems fit. His hand roves Wright’s precise calculations in 1599 – an spheres as well as his clear depiction of in and from all possible directions, extremely useful navigational tool and the three straits along Drake’s route. searching for the most adequate way the main projection used for rectangular But Donne’s cartographical metaphors to map his coveted territory. This license world maps well into the 20th century. are more than simple allusions. They is not only exploratory and colonial: it is The use of double hemisphere pro- recreate in poetry the process through also cartographical. jections – showing the eastern and which early modern cartographers western hemispheres distinctively but inspired their works from previous tradi- MAPPING AND METAPHOR conjointly – were also developed and tions and turned them into new world- Donne, I believe, responds here to a par- became extremely popular at the time. views. ‘On Love’s Progress’ is a particularly ticularly creative moment in the history of Oronce Finé’s Nova, et Integra Universi telling example: cartography, spanning from the late 15th Orbis Descriptio (1531) took the form of to the late 16th centuries. While navigators a double cordiform map [top left], while The nose, like to the first meridian, runs and cartographers had to obtain official Jodocus Hondius, inspired by the works Not ‘twixt an east and west, but ‘twixt two suns; licenses from the authorities to launch of Mercator’s son Rumoldus, popularised It leaves a cheek, a rosy hemisphere, expeditions and publish new maps – a double equatorial stereographic pro- On either side, and then directs us where generally promising not to sell their works jection showing the two circular hemi- Upon the Islands Fortunate we fall to competing countries – the new geog- spheres conjointly, here [bottom left] in (Not faint canary but ambrosial), raphies also encouraged them to take to describe the circumnavigation Her swelling lips, to which when we are come liberties from established cartographic We anchor there, and think ourselves at home, traditions and reinvent the grounds on ‘On Love’s Progress’, lines 47-54 which their maps were laid out. Donne, I World maps, in particular, witnessed While the overall association between major transformations. Rooted until navigational and bodily exploration then in the Ptolemaic tradition – a conic believe, recalls the Europa in forma virginis model, projected coordinate system of the then- Donne in fact creates a new, hybrid, known parts of the world – they had to responds to projection. The reference to the prime be revisited in order integrate the latest meridian excludes purely allegorical terrestrial discoveries, including most of a particularly maps that are devoid of latitudinal and the western hemisphere. Added to the longitudinal gridlines. It does, as far as fact that it is geometrically impossible creative the nose is concerned, correspond to the to transpose a three-dimensional object fascinating Fool’s Cap Map of the World, an (the globe) into a two-dimensional plane anthropomorphic truncated-cordiform without distorting its properties (areas, moment in the map published anonymously around shapes, angles, and so forth), cartogra- 1590, in which the first – and central – phers continuously experimented with history of meridian indeed runs where the shape of new projections, compromising on one a nose might be imagined, crossing the or other of these properties. cartography. Canary Islands (for some time identified Martin Waldseemüller’s Universalis Cos- as the Fortunate Isles). mographia (1507), the first world map to feature the name ‘America’, took the form of the world by the English explorers Sir DONNEAN CARTOGRAPHY? of a truncated cordiform (heart-shaped) Francis Drake and William Cavendish. But Donne’s projection extends to the map, an equivalent projection preserving These two maps by Finé and Hondius whole body: he continues his journey, the areas of regions, except for the South are believed to have sparked two of later in ‘On Love’s Progress’, towards Pole (which was left out). Donne’s cartographical metaphors. As ‘The Sestos and Abydos of her breasts’ Between 1500 and 1514, a ‘true’ Robert Sharp noted in 1954, ‘The Good on both shores of the ‘Hellespont’ (lines cordiform projection was developed by Morrow’ presents a couple of lovers 60-61), with the intent of ‘sailing t’wards Stabius and Werner, and was adapted by facing each other and evoking, through her India’ (line 65) – her genitals. In other notorious cartographers such as Oronce the metaphor of two mirroring hearts, a words, Donne took the liberty to imag- Finé in his Recens et Integra Orbis Descrip- double cordiform projection: ine a new cartographic projection that tio (1534). At around the same time, we might call a mundus in forma virginis: another cordiform map, known today as My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears, a world map in which a head would be ‘the Bonne projection’, was designed by And plain, true hearts do in the faces rest. imprinted on the Atlantic Ocean, a chest Bernardus Sylvanus (1511). Where can we find two fitter hemispheres on Europe, and the lower parts on Asia. Two of the most influential cartogra- Without sharp North, without declining West? Unfortunately, no such map has yet phers of the time, Abraham Ortelius and ‘The Good Morrow’, lines 15-18 been discovered. Gerardus Mercator, not only reused some It is always very difficult to prove with of these cordiform projections, but also Similarly, the eminent historian of certainty if Donne had actually seen contributed to the development of new cartography David Woodward has argued the cartographic projections we have ones. The Ortelius oval projection was, that Donne’s ‘Hymn to God, my God, in discussed so far, despite their popularity. for example, named after Ortelius’s Typus my Sickness’, which refers to the straits Gandelman’s claim that the 1578 edition Orbis Terrarum (1570), although this was of ‘Anian, Magellan and Gibraltar’ (line of Sebastian Münster’s Cosmographia, largely based on a previous world map 18) and insists on the idea that ‘West and owned at some point by Donne, con- produced by Francesco Rosselli in 1508. East / In all flat maps (and I am one) are tained the Europa in forma virginis is inac- In 1569, Mercator published what one’ (line 14), recalls Hondius’s division curate, as the illustration began appear- 10 Viewpoint No. 115

ABOVE This rather unsettling world map features a jester and is known as the Fool’s Cap Map of the World. It was produced by an anonymous cartographer c.1590. Image: Public Domain. ing only in subsequent editions. What we blurred. The very first image of Europe can be sure of, however, is that Donne as a robed figure published by Johannes WORKS CITED was in one way or another sensitive to Putsch in 1537 was accompanied by the manifold possibilities offered to sci- ‘Europa lamentans’, a poem reflecting on Gandelman, Claude, ‘The Poem as Map: John Donne and the “anthropomorphic entists by the new geographies, and saw the poor geopolitical situation on the landscape” tradition’, Arcadia, vol. 19.3 in this heightened cartographic license a continent at the time. Similarly, Michael (1984), pp. 244-251. new form of poetic license. Drayton’s Poly-Olbion (1612-1622), a After all, the boundaries between sci- poetical work describing the topography Sharp, Robert L., ‘Donne’s “Good- ence and poetry were, to say the least, of England and Wales, was accompanied Morrow” and Cordiform Maps’, Modern by maps engraved by William Hole. Language Notes, vol. 69.7 (1954), One of the most influential scientists of pp. 493-495. his time, Francis Bacon, pointed out in The Advancement of Learning (1605) that ‘Poe- Woodward, David (ed.), The History of sie [poetry] is a part of Learning in meas- Cartography, Vol. 3: Cartography in the The bounda- European Renaissance, Part 1 (University ure of words for the most part restrained: of Chicago Press, 2007). ries between but in all other points extreamely [sic] licensed’ (page 17). Donne seems to have Woodward, David, ‘No.13: “Hymn to been saying something similar about the God, my God, in My Sickness” – Com- science and new cartographies of the Renaissance. mentary’, The History of Cartogra- phy Project, 2005. Commentary by poetry were Kader N. Hegedüs Jude Leimer. blurred. Kader.Hegedü[email protected] Viewpoint No. 115 11

Fire and Fury: observing volcanoes in the ancient landscape Jason König and Dawn Hollis explore the long history of fascination with ‘fiery mountains’.

The history of mountains and mountain- which often drew causal links between influence on later accounts, from the eering in the modern world is a popular the climate and landscape of particular Renaissance right through to the nine- topic these days. The usual story is that regions and the character of their inhabit- teenth century. everything changed in the eighteenth ants. Mountainous peoples were often One passage from the geographical and nineteenth centuries. Mountains had associated with primitive savagery and writer Strabo even gives us a remark- been viewed as places of fear and ugliness; toughness. Mountains were also places of able glimpse of a thriving tourist culture now they were linked with beauty and the astronomy; Anaxagoras and Thales and on Mount Etna: sublime, and treated for the first time as other early Greek philosophers are said to venues for leisure activity and adventure. have climbed up mountains to observe Near to Centoripa is the town of One of the goals of the project we are the heavens. Aitna…which receives and escorts working on at the University of St Andrews those who go up the mountain, for the is to challenge that narrative, partly by EARLY SCIENTIFIC INTEREST mountain ridge begins there…The tops giving new attention to some of the But it was in their engagement with of the mountain appear to undergo continuities between ancient and modern volcanoes that ancient scientists and many changes because of the distribu- responses to mountains. To what extent philosophers came closest to modern tion of the fire, which sometimes will were the mountains of the ancient Medi- scientific interest in mountains. They did cluster together in a single crater, but terranean places of science? Was there a not always give the same explanations at other times divides itself, sometimes science of mountains in the ancient world? as their postclassical counterparts, but sending out streams of lava, sometimes There are many different answers many of the questions they asked were flames and sometimes fiery smoke, and to that question. Mountains loomed the same, and ancient habits of intense at other times ejecting red-hot stones. large in ancient ethnographic writing, observation of volcanoes had a striking Strabo, Geography 6.2.8

BELOW Tourists at a lava stream running down from Mount Vesuvio. Plate 38 from William Hamilton, Campi Phlegraei: observations on the volcanoes of the Two Sicilities as they have been communicated to the Royal Society of London (1776). Image: Courtesy of the University of St Andrews Library (rff QE523.V5H3 plateXXXVIII). 12 Viewpoint No. 115

He then relates a detailed account in the first century CE. The poet describes from acquaintances who have made the power of the volcano in terms which the ascent. They report ‘a vertical cloud ‘One learns in anticipate the language of the sublime, in rising standing up to a height of about their stress on fear and awe: 200 feet, motionless (for it was a windless practice, and day) and like smoke’, and they debunk For very many marvels are visible on that the common story that the philosopher experience is mountain. On one side vast openings Empedocles committed suicide by jump- terrify and plunge into the depths…Else- ing into the volcano, on the grounds that as good an where thick cliffs block the path, and the the wind and heat arising from the crater confusion is enormous. would have made it impossible for him to Aetna, lines 180-83 approach closely enough. authority as And yet even that response is not as far FIERY MARVELS Strabo, if he will removed from scientific engagement as Side by side with that tradition of careful it initially looks, given that science and observation there is a much more visceral forgive me wonder were closely linked in the ancient strand of ancient response to the won- imagination. Elsewhere the poet stresses der and horror of volcanoes. We see that the importance of using those reactions powerfully in the anonymous Latin poem saying so.’ as a spur to investigation: ‘not just to gaze the Aetna, which was probably composed – Pietro Bembo (1470-1547) with the eyes like cattle…but to know the proof of things and to search into BELOW Fresco depicting Bacchus wearing grapes and Mount Vesuvius(?), from the doubtful causes…that is the divine and Lararium of the House of the Centenary, Pompeii, Naples Archaeological Museum. delightful pleasure of the mind’ (Aetna Image: Carole Raddato/CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped). lines 224-6 and 251). The Aetna poet’s call – to visit, view, and meditate upon volcanoes in order to better understand the natural world – was enthusiastically followed by natural philosophers and travellers of the early modern period. The Venetian humanist Pietro Bembo (1470-1547) was so amazed by the specta- cle of Mount Etna that he completely dis- regarded the physical dangers of molten rock and flying stones. He also emphasized the need to observe volcanoes for oneself, and not merely to follow the writings of past visitors: ‘one learns in practice, and experience is as good an authority as Strabo, if he will forgive me saying so’. The polymathic Jesuit Athanasius Kircher likewise got up close and per- sonal with the reality of volcanoes. Stranded in the Gulf of Naples by an earthquake in 1638, he was delighted to have the opportunity to ascend Vesuvius, and found himself choked by the smoke and the ‘stench of sulphur.’

SEATS OF PHILOSOPHY The volcano offered Kircher an omen of the end of the world, when God would destroy the Earth by fire. The prospect was terrifying but also wonderful: in the midst of the ‘horrible bellowings and roarings of the Mountain’, Kircher could not help but burst into praise for the ‘riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!’ for creating such phenomena. In the late 18th century, visitors to the Mediterranean drew on newly-refined tools and techniques of empirical meas- urement to understand volcanoes, but largely – and sometimes explicitly – fol- lowed in the footsteps of premodern and Viewpoint No. 115 13

classical fascination. The Scottish travel author Patrick Brydone (1736-1818) made constant ref- Carl Linnaeus’s expedition to erence to his barometer as he ascended Mount Etna in May 1770, but also mused upon the experiences of the ancient fig- Sápmi in 1732 ures who had preceded him. At the ruins of the Torre del Philosopho he marveled Linda Andersson Burnett investigates the work, life, and influ- at the ‘grandeur and sublimity’ of the view ence of a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist. that Empedocles had allegedly chosen for himself: ‘if there is such a thing as philoso- phy on earth, surely this ought to be the Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) was, in his seat of it.’ own words, ‘twenty-five years old, all but about a half day’ when he set off on Fri- VOLCANIC INSIGHTS day 12 May 1732 for what would become Brydone’s volcanic insights, however, a three-month-long expedition to Swed- were overshadowed by those of his fel- ish and Danish-Norwegian Sápmi (then low Scot William Hamilton (1730-1803). referred to as ‘Lapland’). While the Swed- Whilst serving as Ambassador to Naples ish natural historian is today renowned he made extensive observations of for his classification of the natural world, Vesuvius, which were circulated first as a in the 18th century he was also celebrated series of dense letters in the Transactions for this domestic expedition. of the Royal Philosophical Society – the During his travels, Linnaeus covered an foremost scientific publication of the impressive 2,000 miles. Yet, in his report to time – and later in his Campi Phlegraei the Swedish Royal Society for Sciences – (1776), a lavishly-illustrated work which which funded his expedition – his stated produced some of the most iconic mileage was more than doubled to 4,500 volcano images of the 19th century. miles. This deception stemmed, in part at It was Hamilton who finally overturned least, from the fact that the society paid an essential assumption which had him by the mile. persisted from the classical era right up to the beginnings of modernity: that DOMESTIC MAPPING volcanoes were ‘produced’ by mountains Linnaeus’s expedition was part of a when their hollow, interior spaces filled nation-building agenda for harnessing the with fire. Hamilton, through a careful study resources of the country through domestic ABOVE Linnaeus in Sami clothing, hold- of the multiple layers of solid lava which mapping. The period was permeated by a ing the Linnea borealis. A mezzotint of the made up Vesuvius, proposed that the cameralist belief that the great landmass portrait was included in Robert Thornton’s opposite was the case, and that ‘moun- of Sweden was a wealthy country waiting The temple of , in which Thornton tains are produced by volcanos [sic]’. to be discovered and harnessed. illustrated the Linnaean System. This, along with other developments This Swedish cameralism was also a Image: Public Domain. in the eighteenth century, marked the colonial project of surveying, opening up beginning of a new way of understanding and controlling Sápmi – a contested land the Sami, which had emphasised their the seismic origins of the geomorpho- inhabited by indigenous Sami people alleged threatening pagan customs, Lin- logical features of the Earth. (‘Laplanders’) – which stretched across naeus depicted the Sami as inhabiting a There was clearly a vast difference, the state borders of Sweden-Finland, primitive Golden Age of happiness, inno- then, between what different viewers of Norway-Denmark, and Russia. The Swed- cence, and health in the remote north of volcanoes found when they observed ish state hoped that by tying this territory Europe. These primitivist statements were these great, fiery mountains: the Aetna closer to Sweden, it would increase both partly designed to provide didactic les- poet found deeper insight into the causes its landmass and national wealth. Besides sons to his metropolitan readers whom of things; Athanasius Kircher found taxes, there were natural resources of he deemed to be at risk of corruption by revelation; and William Hamilton a new the region, such as animal skins, fishing foreign goods and culture. understanding of the geological history waters, and , including precious of the Earth. What they had in common, metals (silver having been discovered TRAVEL SOUVENIRS however, from the classical era to the there in the early 1630s). Linnaeus brought back a number of late 18th century, was a recognition of the In order to successfully rule Sápmi, the Sami objects from his travels, including remarkable, awe-inspiring nature of such state needed to increase its knowledge a boat, clothes, and a snuff box that he phenomena, and a drive to investigate about the territory and its inhabitants. liked to show people. The walls of his and understand them better. Linnaeus amassed a large number of house were adorned with Sami items he For more about our project, visit: www. observations on both the forest and had collected, including a dress and dried mountains.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk. mountain Sami that he encountered, flowers from his expedition. Preparing for meticulously noting how the Sami his later travels to the Continent in 1735, Jason König and Dawn Hollis dressed, their appearance, their fishing Linnaeus packed a number of Sami sou- University of St Andrews and hunting habits, what plants they venirs, including a shaman’s drum (given [email protected] used, and what diseases affected them. to him as a present following his expedi- [email protected] Moving away from earlier depictions of tion) and a full Sami costume. 14 Viewpoint No. 115

were confiscated by missionaries, and by , the founder of those that were not destroyed formed an the Linnean Society in London, under inventory of items that ended up in the the title Lachesis Lapponica or a tour in hands of metropolitan observers such as Lapland (1811). Linnaeus, who paraded the drum as an exotic object that increased his status as SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS an explorer and botanist. Linnaeus’s emphasis on northern Linnaeus’s expedition, in particular, peripheral exploration, in which all fascinated British naturalists and poets, regions of a kingdom could be made who were at the forefront of disseminat- productive (even those traditionally ing and translated Linnaeus’s ‘Lapland’ perceived as barren and dangerous), narratives. While it did take some time for resonated particularly with British natu- Linnaeus’s to take root in Brit- ral historians interested in the natural ain, due to the strong adherence to the landscapes of the Scottish Highlands native classification system of , such as John Walker, Thomas Lightfoot, he was instantly admired for his expedi- James Robertson, James Anderson, and tion and for (1737), which Thomas Pennant. These natural historians the eminent naturalist and collector modelled their Scottish expeditions and Hans Sloane regarded as ‘the best’ of Lin- inventories on Linnaeus’s Sápmi journey naeus’s works. and, in the case of Walker and Hope, A brief visit to England in 1736 opened taught Linnaean natural history at the a door for Linneaus to the British natural- University of Edinburgh. history elite. When the Dutch naturalist Thomas Pennant wrote to Linnaeus in Gronovius introduced him to the promi- 1770 to inquire when a larger work on nent botanist Philip Miller, he began by Sápmi, which Linnaeus had mentioned in mentioning that Linnaeus had explored Flora Lapponica, would be published. Lin- ABOVE Frontispiece from Linnaeus’s Flora Sápmi: naeus, who suffered from ill health during Lapponica (1737). The illustration depicts his last years, replied that it was now too Linnaeus as ‘a most noble and thoughtful Dear Sir, late for such a work. man’ setting up camp in the Sápmi wilder- For those Britons who were eager to ness. Image: Public Domain. I don’t doubt you have heard that the find out more about the region and its King of Sweden and the University of inhabitants, a small but growing number For the young Linnaeus, Sápmi was also Upsal [sic] has sent a Gentleman to of British natural-history travelers, such a site of personal advancement, and he Lapponia to make observations there. as Matthew Consett and Edward Daniel used the expedition to gain attention and Clarke, visited Scandinavia in the late fame. In Hamburg he is said to have per- Johann Jacob Dillenius, the Professor 18th-century. There they followed in Lin- formed a Sami shamanic séance. He wore of at Oxford, who was initially naeus’s footsteps by visiting both Uppsala his Sami outfit on numerous occasions, suspicious of , like- and Sápmi. such as when he defended his doctoral wise referred to it when he explained thesis in Harderwijk in June 1735. He who Linnaeus was in a letter to Dr Rich- Linda Andersson Burnett even attempted to joik, partaking in the ard Richardson: traditional chant-like musical expression [email protected] of the Sami, which had been outlawed by A new Botanist is arisen in the North, the Swedish Church because of its asso- founder of a new method, on the FURTHER READING ciation with pre-Christian beliefs. and pistils, whose name is Linnaeus… In one of the most famous paintings of He is a Swede, and has travelled over Albritton-Jonsson, F., Enlightenment’s Linnaeus, by the artist Martin Hoffman, Lapland. He has a thorough insight and Frontier: The Scottish Highlands and Linnaeus is depicted in Sami clothing and knowledge of Botany, but I am afraid his the Origins of Environmentalism (New holding the flower Linnea borealis, named method will not hold. Haven, CT, 2013). after him by his friend and patron the Dutch botanist Jan Fredrik Gronovius. Lin- Linnaeus’s descriptions of the Sami, and Andersson Burnett, L. and Buchan, B., naeus’s wearing of Sami clothes is indica- his expedition, were referred to in promi- ‘The Edinburgh Connection: Linnaean tive of the appropriation of Sami culture natural history, Scottish Moral Philoso- nent texts such as Benjamin Stillingfleet’s phy and the Colonial Implications of by himself and the Swedish scientific elite Miscellaneous Tracts on Natural History Enlightenment Thought’ in Linnaeus, he represented. (1759); Richard Pulteney’s A General View Natural History and the Circulation of of the Writings of Linnaeus (1781); Lord Knowledge, eds. Hodacs, H., Nyberg, K., CULTURAL APPROPRIATION Kames’s Sketches of The History of Man and van Damme, S. (Oxford, 2018), This appropriation was, in part, a (1774); Thomas Pennant’s Arctic pp. 161-186. product of intense religious confronta- (1785-1787); and George Shaw’s General tion between the Sami and the Christian Zoology (1800-1812). D H Stoever’s biog- Broberg, G., Sapiens L.: Studier i Scandinavian states. raphy of Linnaeus, appearing in English in Carl von Linnés Naturuppfattning och Sacrificial sites and drums, which 1794, likewise contained a lot of informa- Människolära (Motala, 1975). were used by Sami shamans to answer tion about the expedition. Koerner, L., Linnaeus, Nature and Na- questions about the future or events After his death, Linnaeus’s expedi- tion (Cambridge, 1999). happening simultaneously elsewhere, tion diary was translated into English Viewpoint No. 115 15

The Viewpoint Interview

prestigious advocates, William Huskisson. century. This is also a very readable The irony of progress. monograph, and I’m always looking for inspiration when it comes to academic style. Which historical person would you most like to meet? This is both a historical person and a If you did not work in the history of historian: I would like to meet Professor science, what other career might you Donald Cardwell. Cardwell was Chair in choose? the History of Technology at the University It has been a running joke amongst of Manchester Institute of Science and friends and colleagues of mine for Technology, and his determination to many years that I want to be a ‘TV found a science museum in Manchester ‘to historian’. I did briefly appear on Great rival South Kensington’ led to the estab- British Railway Journeys (another lishment of the Museum of Science and beetroot-red moment for me). But Industry. His archive is full of passion for I’d prefer to work as a researcher in the history of science and technology, and television. I’m very jealous of the QI Manchester. I wonder what he would think Elves and the researchers of Horrible Erin Beetson is a PhD of the Museum and the University today? Histories. On a more serious note, I student at the University of think improving access to higher edu- cation is crucial in the current climate, What has been your best career moment? Manchester and the Museum so I’d enjoy working in university As a PhD student, my career is some- access and engagement. of Science and Industry, what short-lived! I did really enjoy present- Manchester, researching ing a short talk at the Museum of Science Liverpool Road Station. and Industry on the 185th anniversary of What would you do to strengthen the the site in September 2015, which was history of science as a discipline? apt because I was critiquing Liverpool and Public engagement is routinely Who or what first turned you towards Manchester Railway ‘birthday’ events of performed by historians of science. the history of science? the twentieth century for my thesis at the I think better communication of the I first encountered the history of time. excellent work that already goes on science and technology through work- is important in the current climate ing with museum objects. I worked at of anti-academic journalese. There And worst? Bolton Museum for over three years, is clearly also scope to improve our PhDs are taxing both mentally and which has one of the earliest industrial contribution to public history, and physically (archive neck, anyone?), but history collections in the country. I collaborations across disciplines and I share an office with reliable comrades always found objects associated with institutions such as museums is inte- and I also enjoy the support of the wider the local textiles industry particu- gral to this. larly fascinating. I brought together network of HSTM students. An early low- ‘star objects’ from the collection with point for me was going bright beetroot- modern material in the 2013 Textiles red while giving my first talk at the Centre How do you see the future shape of Treasures exhibition. I perhaps unwit- for the History of Science, Technology the history of science? tingly encouraged some ‘heroic inven- and Medicine in Manchester. Talks get I’d like to see a more diversity within tor’ narratives of Samuel Crompton, easier with practice! the field both intellectually and pro- but it was always people’s stories of fessionally. I hope that all-male panels will become a thing of the past, and working in the industry and the social What are your favourite history of science that in future we can better repre- context of technologies that I found books? sent our global society. I know this is most compelling. I find myself often returning to Christine something the BSHS is committed to. MacLeod’s Heroes of Invention: Technology, What’s your best dinner-table history of Liberalism and British Identity, 1750-1914. science story? I think MacLeod’s analysis of the venera- Would you like to suggest an I clearly don’t attend enough dinner tion of inventors for economic, social, and interviewee? political ends (for example, in anti-war parties! I like to relay the story that the Email us and tell us who great ‘first’ of the opening day of the campaigns) explains clearly why histo- Liverpool and Manchester Railway was ries and objects of great inventors have we should speak to! been re-told and collected over the last marred by the death of one its most [email protected] 16 Viewpoint No. 115

The British Journal for the History of Science Forthcoming papers include: • Patricia Fara, ‘Presidential address: the past as a work in progress’

• Alexander Wragge-Morley, ‘Robert Boyle and the representation of imperceptible entities’

• Richard McMahon, ‘The history of transdisciplinary race classification: methods, politics and institutions, 1840s-1940s’

• Marissa Petrou, ‘Apes, skulls, and drums: using images to make ethnographic knowledge in Imperial Germany’

• Petra Svatek, ‘Ethnic Cartography and Politics in Vienna, 1918-1945’

• Jaipreet Virdi, ‘Phyllis M. Tookey Kerridge and the Science of Audiometric Standardisation in Britain’ www.bshs.org.uk/publications/bjhs

Viewpoint: the Magazine of the BSHS

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