William Maclure

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William Maclure, painting by Charles Willson Peale

William Maclure (born October 27, 1763 in Ayr , Scotland , † March 23, 1840 in San Angel , Mexico ) was a Scottish geologist , scholar and philanthropist . He is considered the father of American geology .

Life

The son of a merchant was originally baptized James. During his youth the name changed to William. Maclure quickly made a fortune as a businessman in Europe . In 1796, during his second trip to America, he became a US citizen and began to draw up a geological map of the United States. To this end, he undertook extensive trips, which led him mainly to the area between the Appalachians and Mississippi . In 1803 he negotiated in France the restitution of property damage suffered by US citizens as a result of the revolution . In 1805 he visited Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi in Switzerland .

In 1809 the American Philosophical Society held a conference in Philadelphia . At this event Maclure reported on his explorations and presented a colored geological map. It was the first generally available geological map of the United States. A few years later, in 1817, he published his famous work on the geological structure of the United States.

Maclure's geological explorations now extended to the Caribbean , where he mainly examined the volcanic phenomena on Barbados , Santa Cruz and Saint Thomas .

In the fall of 1817 Thomas Say asked him to participate in the Academy of Sciences of Philadelphia. In December of the same year he was elected its president and held this office until his death in 1840. Under his leadership, it quickly gained supra-regional importance. In particular, their scientific collections and library expanded. Maclure himself donated considerable holdings from his collections and a large part of his own valuable library, which he had acquired with great expertise in Europe. These included over 600 books and 146 folios with scientific subjects, as well as ancient history, the arts and travelogues. The book donation totaled 1,500 objects. No other institution in America at the time had a library of this value.

During his life, Maclure also supported other institutions through donations of books and scientific collections.

After 1820 he tried to set up an agricultural and social model project near Alicante in Spain , but it failed. In 1826 he traveled with other scholars and writers, including Robert Owen , Charles-Alexandre Lesueur and Thomas Say on a keelboat named Philanthropist down the Ohio to settle in the utopian settlement of New Harmony in Indiana . There he founded the Working Men's Institute and the first library in Indiana. Even before this utopian project failed, Maclure moved his residence and center of life to Mexico after 1826 for health reasons.

See also: Maclura

Works

  • To the people of the United States . Philadelphia: [sn], 1807.
  • Observations on the Geology of the United States explanatory of a Geological Map (1809)
  • Observations on the Geology of the United States of America (1817)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ William Maclure: Observation on the Geology of the United States of America with Some Remarks on the Effekt Produced on the Nature an Fertility of Soils by the Decomposition of the Different Classes of Rocks and an Application to the Fortility of Every State in the Union in Reference to the Accompanying Geological Map .
personal data
SURNAME Maclure, William
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Scottish geologist, scholar and philanthropist
DATE OF BIRTH October 27, 1763
PLACE OF BIRTH Ayr , Scotland
DATE OF DEATH March 23, 1840
Place of death San Angel , Mexico