Scientists Collection, American Philosophical Society

Table of contents

Abstract

The Scientists Collection is comprised of individual letters and small groups of correspondence from American, British, French, and German scientists during the past three centuries. Although the content is highly varied, there is significant strength in astronomy, natural history, conchology, and geology.

Among the scientists better represented in the collection are the astronomers William Radcliffe Birt, J.F.W. Herschel, and Franz Xaver von Zach; the conchologists A.D. Brown, Fred L. Button, Otto Mörch, Alfred Newton, Christian M. Poulsen, Temple Prime, Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy, and A. G. Wetherby; the physical scientists George Biddell Airy, Arnold Sommerfeld, Ferdinand R. Hassler, and Max Planck; the archaeologist Jean François Nadaillac; the philosopher William Whewell; and the naturalists Walter Henry Bates, Robert Chambers, Edme Dupuget, Robert Kaye Greville, Joseph Henry, John Stevens Henslow, John Lubbock, and Herbert Spencer.

Background note
Scope & content
- Arrangement
Administrative information
Additional information
Added entries
Contact information
Collection overview
- Series I. Miscellaneous scientific correspondence, 1563-1973
- Series II. American-Russian Scientific Correspondence, 1789-1910
- Series III. Physicists' Correspondence, 1786-1961
Collection inventory
- Series I. Correspondence, 1563-1973
- Series II. American-Russian Scientific Correspondence, 1789-1910
- Series III. Physicists' Correspondence, 1786-1961

Scope and content

The Scientists Collection is a miscellaneous assemblage of individual letters and small groups of correspondence of American and European scientists from the 17th through 20th centuries. The disciplines represented are varied, with significant depth in natural history, conchology, geology, and astronomy, and there are separate series for physicists (58 items, relating especially to Max Planck), and American-Russian scientific exchange prior to the Russian Revolution (46 items).

Among the more extensive sets of correspondence in the collection is an interesting group of letters dealing with conchology during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Consisting primarily of correspondence addressed to the naturalist, Otto Mörch, the clockmaker Benjamin Vulliamy, or the bookseller, Herman Lynge, this correspondence includes letters from avid devotees of the science such as A.D. Brown, F. L. Button, Alfred Newton, Christian M. Poulsen, Temple Prime, A.H. Riise, and A. G. Wetherby, concerning the acquisition and exchange of specimens in Britain and on the European continent. Much of the correspondence of the Americans Spencer Fullerton Baird, William Stimpson, and Theodore Lyman is of a similar nature.

The circle of Darwin and, more generally, of mid-19th century British natural historians, is also well represented in the Scientists Collection. Included in the collection are valuable letters from John Edward Gray, William Whewell, John Lubbock, and John Stevens Henslow, and there is a small set of letters from Robert Chambers, as well as a fascinating exchange between the publisher John Murray and the naturalist, Henry W. Bates, concerning publication of Bates' The Naturalist on the River Amazon and other works. Several of the great geologists of the glory days of the science are also represented, most only by a few letters, including Adam Sedgwick, Roderick Impey Murchison, John Phillips, William Buckland, Gideon Mantell, and Henry T. De La Beche.

The physical sciences form a third key area of interest, stretching from the 18th century astronomer, Baron von Zach, through Ferdinand Hassler and George Biddell Airy, to the correspondence of a graduate student, H.M. Cave, completing his doctoral studies at Cambridge in 1929. Series III includes correspondence of Arnold Sommerfeld, Wilhelm Wien, and Max Planck.

A small number of miscellaneous autographs and brief letters of non-scientists has found their way into in the collection, having been acquired along with scientific correspondence. A few letters, most notably of Alfred Russel Wallace, have been transferred to other miscellaneous collections.


Series I. Miscellaneous Scientific Correspondence	1563-1973	2.5 linear feet
Series II. American-Russian Scientific Correspondence	1789-1910	0.25 linear feet
Series III. Physicists' Correspondence	1786-1961	0.25 linear feet

Arrangement

Each series is arranged chronologically.

Administrative information

Restrictions

None.

Provenance

Acquired variously, 1961-present.

Preferred citation

Cite as: Scientists Collection, American Philosophical Society.

Processing information

Recatalogued by rsc, 2002.