William Burchell - Explorer and Botanist ...

Zebras always entice us to look at their sleek bodies, and those stripes – all unique.  My love of South Africa and how I am always drawn to the country of Africa and to history … led to this post.

 

Burchell's Zebra

Asbestos Mountains came to the fore when I was looking at the mineral asbestos for my post on Heather’s terrible condition (Mesothelioma) … and I noted the explorer whose name is linked to the Burchell Zebra.

Fulham Palace entrance

William John Burchell (1781 – 1863) was an English explorer, naturalist, traveller, artist and author … he was the son of a botanist, who owned Fulham Nursery adjacent to the gardens of the medieval Fulham Palace (the early residences of Bishops of London (11^th C until 1975)) which still has an extensive botanical garden. 

Glasshouses in Fulham Palace Garden
today

Burchell initially took up botany serving an apprenticeship at Kew – however love intervened, but ... he was sent off by his disapproving parents to St Helena … a long way to be exiled for love!

After arrival and some years, he took advice and set off to the Cape to add to his botanical collection, travelling in South Africa between 1810 and 1815, collecting over 50,000 specimens while exploring unknown tracts of land.

Namibian stamp for a postcard in 2007
featuring Burchell's Zebra

He also spent five years in Brazil between 1825 and 1830 – again collecting and recording everything of interest.

Burchell's Coucal - a species
of cuckoo

His extensive African collections included plants, animal skins, skeletons, insects, seeds, bulbs and fish; the bulk of his plant specimens went to Kew, with the Brazilian insects to Oxford University Museum.

Burchell's Bubalina - wild
pomegranate image from Curtis's
Botanical magazine - first published
in 1787 and still going today

He was such a great observer, detailing the habit and habitat, as well as all his drawings and paintings as he went along – in 1819 he was questioned by Parliament about the suitability of South Africa for emigration … the 1820 Settlers followed a year later.

Eciton Burchellii army ant from Brazil
with the characteristically shaped
mandibles

His journals and notebooks survive in Kew, those of his Brazil expedition are missing, as are his diaries relating to his later travels: a man of passion, patience, observation, scholarship and experimentation who was a natural Naturalist – a man trained with an inquiring mind … thank goodness for them and the early information they have left us.

Burchell’s Zebra is extant – the Quagga is extinct

The moose is extant - the Dodo is extinct

Extinct is dead as a Dodo!

Burchelll's drawing of the Asbestos Mountains

Extant, per the Oxford Dictionaries, means it is still in existence, surviving, not necessarily alive … Neontology is the study of extant taxa – where species, genera and families, whose members are still alive, such as Burchell’s Zebra and the Moose.

Descending from the Sneeuberge, Graaff-Reinet
painted by Burchell (1812)

The reason that Neontology has got in here … is that Stephen Jay Gould the palaeontologist coined the word Neontologist  - and guess what disease he had – yes: Mesothelioma – but he eventually succumbed to another cancer, not linked.  He lived for 20 years after his diagnosis … that’s quite a long time for someone with Mesothelioma.

Burchell's route

This post could have got more convoluted as I found other interesting links … but we can find subjects to post about all over the place …

The wagon commissioned by
Burchell for his expeditions

So I hope you enjoyed travelling along the dotted path to South Africa, from Fulham, via St Helena, then on to Brazil and back to the archives at Kew and Oxford …

… all arising from the Asbestos Mountains found by the Botanist William Burchell – who had these wonderful creatures named after him.


In the comments I've been asked about 'extant' ... and perhaps this Chicago Tribune article explains it for anyone interested:  

Scientists hope to resurrect long-extinct cousin to the zebra

Heather von St James, who is raising awareness of the disease she suffers from - please read:

Mesothelioma Awareness Day post.

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories.

Blaschka Glass Models of Flowers, Marine Invertebrates et al ...

As I mentioned in my previous post the glass flowers I had seen at Harvard in 1976 had always held a sway in my memory ... they were dusty ... but oh so accurate and quite quite extraordinary ... and obviously created an interest factor with you via your comments.

 

Cashew Nut - Blaschka
botanical model

So here’s a little more information about those glass botanical models ... leaves, branches, twigs, stamens, seeds, fruits, cross sections and flowers; sea-anemones, octopuses, squid, jellyfishes, radiolarians, amoebas and corals  ...

These Czech artisans, the Blaschkas, began their careers as jewellers working in Dresden, Germany ... but the family came from a long line of skilled glassmakers – originally from Venice, where they worked in the decorative glass trade, before moving to Northern Bohemia when Leopold (1822-1895) was four.

Glass Octobpuses

Artistic as a child, Leopold was apprenticed first as a goldsmith and gem-cutter, before joining the family business to make glass ornaments ... and more squeamishly glass eyes for taxidermists.

He became interested in the newly fashionable field of natural history and in the late 1850s started making glass models of the exotic flowers he found in natural history books.

 

Glass Blossom

He was commissioned to produce glass plant (orchid) models, but on seeing those the curator at the Dresden Natural History Museum changed Leopold’s direction by ordering some glass models of sea-anemones, which would be of more scientific value than the pickled creatures available.

Leopold’s models were so precise in scale, colour and form, that news of his prowess spread swiftly.  Aquaria and natural history museums were then opening all over the world ... glass sea-anemones were soon followed by snails and jellyfish, as his repertoire built ... with a major order from London’s Natural History Museum.

See the cactus spikes ... all glass

Rudolf (1857-1939) had joined his father working as a team from their workshop far from the newly fashionable city museums, where these works of art would be exhibited.

At a time when the public was entranced by the bizarre plants unearthed by explorers and by the splendidly surreal creatures discovered beneath the sea (since the invention of the submarine and deep sea diving kit in the mid-1800s) the Blaschkas’ models offered a rare glimpse into these exotic worlds.

 

c/o Harvard Museum - theglass banana plant
being admired by children

The soft bodies of marine invertebrates were particularly difficult to preserve – but the glass models more than made up for this scientific challenge of the 1800s – they also detailed the colours, which were lost in the alcohol or formalin preservation process.

The Blaschkas’ skill died with them ... though they practised techniques that were common to glassworkers of the time ... but it was their incredible skill in glassworking, dedication to the study and observation of nature, then their enthusiasm for the subject matter that made them exceptional.

A model of Leopold Blaschka at
his workbench

They practised lampworking, a glassworking technique in which glass is melted over a flame fed by air from a foot-powered bellows.  The melted glass is then shaped using tools to pinch, pull or cut and forms can be blown as well.

Coloured glass was used, as were coloured paints made from ground glass and minerals to give veracity to the models ... these were applied and then melted into the model using a lamp flame.  Copper wire armatures were used within the glass stems, when necessary.

Charles Darwin observed in 1874 the digestive process and insectivorous nature of the plant Pinguicula (Butterwort) ... which to the amazement in 1997 of the botanist Donald Schnell, on visiting the glass flowers ...

 

This is not a glass model, but
shows a butterwort leaf, with
its hairs and a caught insect

... he was astonished to see a panel showing Pinguicula and a pollinating bee: “one sculpture showed a bee entering the flower and a second showed the bee exiting, lifting the stigma apron as it did so,” precisely as Schnell had hypothesized ... which the Blaschkas had faithfully executed in glass over one hundred years earlier ...

The Blaschkas described themselves as “natural history artisans” ... and today they seem remarkably contemporary: working as they did in the late 1800/early 1900s on the cusp of design, craft, art and industry.

 

Panels upon panels of exquisite
glass botanicals at Harvard

Which now reminds me a little of the doors that were opened in Britain by the 2012 Olympics ... allowing a multitude of trades to express their wares, some seen at the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, now on show in museums and design centres around the UK and worldwide.

That mix of enterprise, trying new methodologies, combining disciplines – yet practising the art of precision, dedication and perseverance ... will always be a part of human progression.

The glass models made by the Blaschkas are able to be viewed ...

·        a few marine invertebrates at the Grant Museum, see previous post

·        some at the Natural History Museum, Kensington, London

·        the majority of the glass flowers are at the Ware Collection, Harvard, USA

·        many aquaria models are held by the Corning Museum of Glass, Steuben County, New York

 

An example of a
radiolarian

Further reading can be found at Wikipedia, and at the:

Ø Design Museum – The Glass Aquarium 

Ø Natural History Museum – Blaschka Glass Models

Radiolarians were also sculpted – these are amoeboid protozoa (diameter 0.1-0.2mm) that produce intricate mineral skeletons ... the Natural History Museum video shows the Blaschka model ... magnified many times – well worth a six minute watch:

The video also shows how the NHM prepared and looked at ways to preserve and repair the 185 ‘treasured specimen models’ by the Blaschkas now on show in the Treasures Cadogan Gallery – enjoy!

Grant Museum of Zoology - my previous post

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Grant Museum of Zoology ... Creepy Crawlies, Slippery Slitheries, cabinets of curiosities and odd oddities ...

This is where the world of Thomas Huxley (grandfather to Julian, Aldous and Andrew), Damien Hirst, glass models, slices and slides are gathered – it would be one horrendous, smelly, gory, bone shattering mess if they were to collide.

Inside the Grant Museum

Bearing in mind that Damien Hirst’s art fits in cosily here ... you might want to drop down and pass this post by ... equally you might be entertained by the squeamish ... on your head be it ... there are bisected heads (.... of animals I hasten to add) ...

This museum is a place to explore often ... to revisit and marvel ... to find new ‘treasures of surprise’ that occurred or occur on our living planet, zoological specimens covering the whole range of the animal kingdom whose specimens can be sponsored ...

 

Sorry forgot what this chap is!!

... a great fun way to fund raise, while giving an interesting gift to relative or friend (as Old Kitty commented this had happened to one of her colleagues) ... while the Museum looks to provide a new environment for its collections ... a move, personally, I’d hate to organise and do!

Early slides and photos or lithographs

The Museum is described as a Kingdom in a Cabinet and I don’t think I can do it justice ... the place is dusty, musty and stacked high and tall ...  not remotely dull ... the contents might put one or two off – yet this is the stuff of life – our life.

A great resource for zoologists, botanists, medics, biologists ... there are over 67,000 specimens here, with all the research papers and records to match, some going back nearly 200 years (1827 and beyond).

Blaschka glass models - these have all been
adopted for fund raising!

Robert Edmond Grant (1793-1874), after whom the museum is named, came to London from Edinburgh to lecture at the newly established University College London ... where he mentored the young Charles Darwin, who was studying medicine, a course he left unfinished ...

Grant’s specialist interests were sponges and other marine invertebrates ... and while on research expeditions back in Scotland with his young pupil ... Grant talked of early evolutionary theory ... setting Darwin off on his life’s work ...

Glass snail - the shine, the slime can
all be seen ... by the Blaschkas

It was Grant that set about building a collection of teaching resources from scratch, bringing his own collection to the Museum, and using a modest fund from the University to build on his collection.  At his death in 1874 these 10,000+ specimens formed the basis of the Museum today.

I was specifically interested in the Blaschka glass models ... as I’d originally seen the glass flowers at Harvard way back when!  Those botanical glass models, perfectly reproduced, have made a lasting impression on me. 

Here we have early glass models of marine invertebrates ... extraordinary to think they were made of glass – all of glass!  I will write more about the Blashkas and their legacy anon ...

Anaconda wrap around skeleton -
also sponsored

Natural History abounds in twists and turns ... the 250 kg anaconda skeleton – six metres long – sinuously wrapped without its flesh amongst other reptiles ...

Huxley was known as “Darwin’s bulldog” ... and his huge collection came over to the Museum once Imperial College closed its Zoology Department in the late 1800s.  Huxley had dissected many of the specimens himself.

Sir Victor Negus was a laryngologist who did much to shape the course of the modern ear, nose and throat research  ... the specimens preserved and shown may remind us of the artist Damien Hirst’s work.

Walrus head with tusks

The Finzi Lepidoptera Collection can be found here ... over 7,000 specimens held by the Museum ... some of them still have their original labels, providing an insight into Victorian taxonomic thinking.

This is a very valuable collection as it includes many specimens that are now nationally scarce, have become extinct during the last century, or are seriously endangered.

I didn't take any photos of the Lepidoptera collection .... 

Tape Worm ... with parasatic worms ..
I see also sponsored!

There’s an Invertebrate Collection – animals without bones, comprising around 97% of animal life today.  They were the first animals to appear on Earth, around six hundred million years ago, and all vertebrate life has evolved from them.  They occupy most niches in most habitats.

The Vertebrate Collection covers animals that have bones ... these are separated into five groups: birds, mammals, fish, reptiles and amphibians.

Back Wall of museum with display
cabinets ... 

Then there are the Extinct Animals – the Dodo has probably become iconic because it was the first time humans realised they had destroyed a species.

In the three centuries since lots more species have disappeared ... the Museum holds many specimens, which were collected in the 1800s, from species that have since disappeared.

While going back further in history ... through its palaeontology collection of fossil animals – scientists can study this prehistoric life to determine organisms’ evolution and interactions with each other and their environments.

A Dipetera - to me looking uncannily like a mozzie ... 

While my main reason for visiting was the see the Micrarium – a place of tiny things ... lived up to expectations.   

These back lit slides highlight and remind us that about 95% of known animal species are smaller than our thumb ... so it is great to see this wonderful display of microscopic creatures ...

·        “Legs of Fleas showing muscles”;

·        Whole squid, just a couple of millimetres long;

·        Beetles which have been sliced through their entire body, through the antennae, head, legs and body ... 1/10^th of a millimetre thick;

·        Scattered amongst the miniature creatures are a handful of tiny pieces of giant animals on microscopic slides, including whales, mammoths and giraffe ....

Another shot of some of the slides in the Micrarium

Then the Glass Flowers remind me of a happy visit to the States and to Harvard in 1976 ... I have to say since I started writing this post I cannot get photos and memories of skeletons, creepy crawlies, light-box slides out of my head ...

Welcome to a brief note on the world of natural history courtesy of the Grant Museum.

Grant Museum of Zoology, UCL, Rockefeller Building, 21 University Street, London WC1E 6DE

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Big Freeze Winter 1962/63: part 2 - Weather Forecasting 1960s style and reported outcomes

Further extracts from the recent BBC tv broadcast archive on The Big Freeze of 1962/63 – this is ...

George Cowling presents the first 'in vision'
weather forecast on 11 Jan 1954

Part 2:  Weather forecasting 1960s style ... and reported outcomes of big freeze ...

I seem to remember the normal weather would be presented using magnetic boards and the presenters moved clouds or rain around ... the isobars must have been there ...

... but when the Tonight team explained the reasons for the Siberian conditions waxing, sticking and waning before returning again to torture us ‘the stalwart Britons’ so nearly into submission with the atrocious weather we experienced ...

Bay of Biscay   (note Algeria in north Africa -
pertinent to recent events)

... they had to use separate display boards ... the presenter pulled the boards to and fro across his knee, showing us, by pointing, where the weather had come from, how close the isobars were, how strong the wind etc ... there were about five of these boards!  Life was primitive in the tv studio 50 years ago ...

Stage 1: 21^st December a Siberian anti-cyclone started to move in ...

Stage 2: westerly winds weakened, allowing the eastern Siberian winds in – led to snow ...

Snowflake through a microscope

Stage 3:  the anti-cyclone in Greenland moved south and this brought the Boxing Day snow ..

Stage 4:  Warm front met Cold Front so the blizzards blew ...

Stage 5: the weather changed its mind from its normal course – moving south into the Bay of Biscay – once again allowing the Siberian weather in ...

Ø The 1963 presenters then went into an explanation ... American scientists suggest the reason is to be found in Hawaii ...

§  where they suspect the upper air currents (which we now know as Jet Streams) have been exaggerated in their North-South swings over the Pacific, which then affects that swing over the Atlantic ...

§  so blame the freeze on the Hawaiins ...  (and yes they did say that in 1963 – no doubt with tongue in cheek, even then!)

Ø Yet today we realise the jet streams (north and south) affect the global weather in each of our hemispheres ... so those ‘Hawaiin scientists’ were right!!

Each snowflake is unique

The death toll at the time of the broadcast was 120 ...

Hospitals were on severe weather Red Warning notice re beds ... only emergencies were to be accepted ...

Ø That year apparently there were fewer flus and colds ...

The cost ran to £150 - £200 million  (estimate ... I’m sure it was a lot higher)

c/o English Heritage - fields

The country was simply not geared up enough, or had prepared enough after the 1947 winter

The only piece of Parliamentary legislation passed into law – was that compulsory freeze free domestic water systems be installed in all new houses – no mention was made of the housing stock of 14 million older homes in 1963.

Intensive Farming - less habitat for
field birds

The 1963 presenters commented: We can only hope that government and local authorities who have been caught with their pants down will pull their socks up and sort our preparedness out ...?!

.... but technically much has changed – or has it?  We haven’t since then had 74 days of living in a freezer, or the country completely ‘whited out’ ... and I sincerely hope I never have to experience a winter like that.

Robin anxiously wondering where food would be
found - our garden bird

  

After the 50 year old archive footage Chris Packham, today’s presenter, asked how have we as a nation survived it?

This wasn’t discussed as technology has changed so much ... lighter trains, frozen electric third rail, understanding of the snow type we have here, improved housing and utilities ... 

Hazel Dormouse

... but it was noted that people aren’t as prepared to help each other ... people aren’t helping clear pavements etc ... we expect things to be done for us ... etc ...

European Swallow

Big Freeze effect on Wild Life ... when at the best of times the days are at their shortest and coldest, and food is anyway scarce ... this is Chris Packham’s area of expertise – he’s a naturalist – he commented:

Ø bats , hedgehogs, dormice all hibernate

Ø swallows, cuckoos migrate to Africa

European Wren

Others can’t hibernate or escape to warmer climes ...

Ø Small birds (e.g. tits) need to eat about 1/3 of body weight from dawn to dusk

Ø With snow cover and a deep freeze: and the birds suffer really badly – and in 1963 it went on for so long ... 74 days

Ø Some flocks of starlings, lapwings and thrushes ... actually flew out as the first cold snap hit around Christmas ..

Gold Crest

Ø Wrens weighing a few grams – need to eat half their body weight each day ...

Ø Gold crests and long tailed tits eat invertebrates ... hundreds of thousands died ...

River Exe - the flooded area per my
post of Jan 13th 

Waterways:

Ø Virtually every pond, lake and river was frozen solid ...

Ø Birds depend on water ... to live and drink

Water Rails painted by
Naumann (1780 - 1857)

Ø Water Rails turned into ruthless killers ...

Ø ... other birds altered their routines ...

Ø Coastal estuaries and marshes offered a relief for migrating Arctic wildfowl – this was challenging even for them as there were very few unfrozen water areas ...

Other adaptions:

European Buzzard

Ø Scavengers and predators did ok ... particularly buzzards and kestrels .... crows and magpies ....

Ø Grain eating birds like starlings and sparrows turned cannibal and ate their cousins – other birds ...

It was estimated that half of all Britain’s birds had died ...

Arctic Migrating Birds

... surprisingly it didn’t seem to make much difference in the long term ... within 5 years the wren bounded back to previous levels ... and by the 1970s had become the commonest bird in the UK

Birds can adapt by having lots of broods and therefore lots of young ...

European Lapwing

However in the last 50 years our farming practices have changed a great deal ... farming is now so efficient – that there’s very little left in the wide open fields for the farm birds ...

... whereas the garden birds are doing better – as we tend to feed them ...

Bewick Swan - I need to eat ... !

The annual Great British Garden Watch has just happened – so when the results are out ... I’ll do a post on the outcome ...

We, as humans, really do need to take into account all of life ... each insect, ‘pest’, seed, grass, plant, algae, lichen all nurture the life we depend on ... everything we do always leads to unintended consequences ...

... the use of agrichemicals during the war and particularly afterwards affects wildlife even to this day – there was a note last night on the River Wye (Britain’s 5^th longest river: for a great deal of its course it forms the border between England and Wales) oysters (which can live for 120 years) – the oyster ‘inspected’ was probably 60 years old and showed signs of those agri-chemicals ...

River Wye valley with Tintern Abbey

The advances in technology and science are enormous – if only we can get the (global) human mind to alter its approach to life ...

Will the 1963 type of winter happen again ... very possibly because the global weather is changing so quickly, as it always has ...

What the world ahead holds for our future generations we can do our best to influence ... while what the universe has in store for us is anyone’s guess ...

Do we have time – again ... who knows ......... I live in hope, I do what I can, that’s all we can do

Here endeth part 2 of three

BBCWinter Watch 1963 programme: The Big Freeze

Cliff Michelmore Tonight (1957) – see Wikipedia

BBC - Weather: History of

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories