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Scottish Chemistry, Classification and the Late Mineralogical Career of the “Ingenious” Professor John Walker (1779-1803)

Eddy, M.D.

Scottish Chemistry, Classification and the Late Mineralogical Career of the “Ingenious” Professor John Walker (1779-1803) Thumbnail


Authors

M.D. Eddy



Abstract

During the first decade of the nineteenth century, Edinburgh was the scene of several lively debates concerning the structure of the Earth. Though the ideas of groups like the ‘Wernerians’ and the ‘Huttonians’ have received due attention, little has been done to explicate the practice of mineralogy as it existed in the decades before the debates. To dig deeper into the eighteenth-century subject that formed the foundation of nineteenth-century geology in Scotland, this essay concentrates on Rev. Dr John Walker, the University of Edinburgh's Professor of Natural History (1779–1803). In pursuing this topic, it builds on an earlier BJHS article in which I excavated his early career as a mineralogist (1749–79). After first addressing a few historiographical points and the provenance of the student manuscripts upon which this study is based, I explain the method that Walker used to arrange minerals. I then move on to show that, like his younger attempts at mineralogical classification, his mature system was based predominantly upon chemistry. This sets the stage for the last half of the essay where I reconstruct the mineralogical system that Walker taught to the hundreds of students who sat in his natural history lectures from 1782 until 1800. I then conclude with a few observations about the relevance of his mineralogy to the scientific community of late eighteenth-century Edinburgh.

Citation

Eddy, M. (2004). Scottish Chemistry, Classification and the Late Mineralogical Career of the “Ingenious” Professor John Walker (1779-1803). British Journal for the History of Science, 37(4), 373-399. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0007087404006132

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date Dec 1, 2004
Deposit Date Jan 9, 2009
Publicly Available Date Jan 9, 2009
Journal British Journal for the History of Science
Print ISSN 0007-0874
Electronic ISSN 1474-001X
Publisher Wiley
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 37
Issue 4
Pages 373-399
DOI https://doi.org/10.1017/s0007087404006132

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© 2004 British Society for the History of Science



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