
De Saussure and the Heliothermometer
Horace Bénédict de Saussure was a natural philosopher from Geneva who explored the Alps in the late 1700s and puzzled through the reasons for the
Retracing Darwin’s footsteps in South America and beyond, geologist Rob Wesson treks across the Andes, cruises waters charted by the Beagle, hunts for fossils in Uruguay and Argentina, and explores sites of long vanished glaciers in Scotland and Wales. As he follows Darwin’s path―literally and intellectually―Wesson experiences the land as Darwin did, engages with his observations, and tackles the same questions Darwin had about our ever-changing Earth.
Upon his return from his five-year journey aboard the Beagle, after examining the effects of earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and more, Darwin conceived his theory of subsidence and uplift―his first theory.
These concepts and attitudes―the vastness of time; the enormous cumulative impact of almost imperceptibly slow change; change as a constant feature of the environment―underlie Darwin’s subsequent discoveries in evolution. And this peculiar way of thinking remains vitally important today as we enter the human-dominated Anthropocene age.
Expertly interweaving science and adventure, Darwin’s First Theory is a riveting and revelatory journey around the world with one of the greatest scientific minds in history.
Horace Bénédict de Saussure was a natural philosopher from Geneva who explored the Alps in the late 1700s and puzzled through the reasons for the
Today kids learn about the Ice Ages in elementary school, but two hundred years ago the idea of the Ice Ages, while it was just
The Pierrabot, near Neuchâtel, and other giant glacial erratics in western Switzerland and elsewhere were initially a great puzzle to early geologists. The question was
Some of the earliest scientific investigations of glaciers occurred here on the Unteraar Glacier, near the Grimsel Pass in Switzerland. The natural philospher Horace-Benedict de