Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) was the German scientist who coined the phrase "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" and the terms "Darwinism" and "ecology." He was first to postulate a "missing link" between ape and man and was proven correct when Java man was found in 1891. A staunch evolutionary biologist, Haeckel put Darwin on the world map. His books and monographs, placing Darwin in a broad social and philosophical context, were circulated internationally; they outsold On the Origin of Species by a large margin. Haeckel was commonly referred to as "the Darwin of Germany." This exhibition presents a selection of digitized reproductions of the remarkable illustrations in the two volume Art Forms in Nature. They have been culled from the holdings of the rare book collection of the MBLWHOI Library. ... [Information of the supplier]
The Naturhistorische Museum - Natural History Museum - was set up again after the devastating fire of 1865 by the Admont Benedictine Father Gabriel Strobl in the years 1866 to 1910. In his scientific activity Father Gabriel Strobl built up a huge insect collection with roughly 252,000 specimens, with the collection of about 80,000 flies being one of the three most important in Europe. Through his own collecting, exchange, buying and in the form of gifts Father Gabriel Strobl acquired over 44 years the collection that can be admired in the partly newly planned Natural History Museum. A glass-case ribbon stretches for about 24 metres and shows in texts, pictures and exhibits the historical development of the Natural History Museum. The first side room is dedicated to Father Gabriel Strobl’s life work. His scientific and artistic work is described in a large table glass-case, while an exhibition of various insect groups can be seen on the walls. The second side room presents all 243 examples of the wax fruits made by Father Constantin Keller (1778-1864) in an impressive installation. ... [Information of the supplier, translated]
Charles Darwin’s Library is a digital edition and virtual reconstruction of the surviving books owned by Charles Darwin. In 1908, Charles Darwin’s son Francis transferred what he called the ‘Darwin Library’ to the Botany School at Cambridge University under the care and control of the Professor of Botany, A. C. Seward. As Francis put it, "The library of Charles Darwin has now found a permanent home in his University..." Of course the library of Charles Darwin is more than the collection of the works he owned at his death. As Francis already appreciated in 1908, "The chief interest of the Darwin books lies in the pencil notes scribbled on their pages, or written on scraps of paper and pinned to the last page." Darwin did read both systematically and with great intensity. He read to gather evidence, to explore and define the research possibilities of his evolutionary ideas, and to gauge reactions to his own publications. In fact, reading was a major tool in Darwin’s scientific practice. Thus what our digital reconstruction of the Darwin Library delivers is the ability to retrace and reduplicate Darwin’s reading of a wealth of materials. The portion of the Darwin Library now published at the Biodiversity Heritage Library constitutes Phase 1 of a collaborative project to digitise the Darwin Library works and to provide transcriptions of Darwin’s marginalia side by side with the pages he marked. Phase 1 presents images and marginalia for 330 books, represents 22% of the total 1480 Darwin Library book titles. But, more significantly, these 330 titles represent 44% of the 743 Darwin books that bear his annotations or marks. The latter comprise 28951 annotated and marked book pages and 1624 attached note slips. Plans for further phases to complete digital publication of the remainder of the Darwin Library are now under consideration. ... [Information of the supplier]
