Best fact learnt yesterday - in 1771 an estimated 70,000 people attended the Whitsun scouring of the horse festival at Uffington, which was accompanied by sports and festivities. 70,000. That's Glastonbury sized!
Cephalopods depicted on a plate from my copy of an over 230 year old multi-paged, oversized folio labeled ‘Vers Mollusques,’ part of “Tableau encyclopédique et méthodique..”
My copy of the first French edition (1837) of On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences, by Mary Somerville, “one of the best-selling science books of the 19th century.”
A gilded crinoid from sedimentary strata of the Late Devonian age. This was drawn by scientific artist & sometime poet Sarah Hall, & now immortalized on the cover of her husband James Hall’s 1843 book on the geology of New York (my copy).
Crinoid fossils showing off their pentaradial (five-part) symmetry. Detail of a plate from my copy of “Illustrations to the Geological Report Wisconsin, Iowa, & Minnesota” by geologist David Dale Owen.
Melting glaciers force Switzerland and Italy to redraw part of Alpine border Two countries agree to modifications beneath Matterhorn peak, one of Europe’s highest summits #Glaciers#Cryosphere#Italy#Switzerland#Matterhorn
Two countries agree to modifications beneath Matterhorn peak, one of Europe’s highest summits
A triceratops plate from my 1907 copy of “The Ceratopsia” by John Hatcher after the work of Yale paleontologist Othniel C. Marsh. Marsh named this genus along with many other dinosaur genera including Allosaurus Brontosaurus, Stegosaurus, etc.
“The following table exhibits the ten problems in the tangencies of circles proposed by a Greek geometer, Apollonius Pergaeus, who lived A.C. 200.” Plate for the sixth problem & excerpt above from my copy of “The Tangencies of Circles & of Spheres” by Benjamin Alvord published in 1855.
I’m honestly ready for our squirrel overlords. I can gather pine cones or whatever. Detail of a hand-colored, stone lithograph from my copy of the Octavo edition of “Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, Volume II” (1853) by John James Audubon and John Bachman.
Giant Himalayan lily (Cardiocrinum giganteum). My copy of a plate from “Flore de Serres et des Jardins de l'Europe..” by Belgian horticulturist Louis van Houtte (1810-1876) & French botanist Charles Lemaire (1800-1871). Coin for scale.
