Nathaniel Shaler

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Nathaniel Shaler (1894)
Signature of Nathaniel Southgate Shaler.jpg

Nathaniel Southgate Shaler (born February 20, 1841 in Newport , Kentucky , † April 10, 1906 in Cambridge , Massachusetts ) was an American geologist and paleontologist .

Life

Shaler studied at Harvard University under Louis Agassiz with a bachelor's degree summa cum laude in 1862, served two years as an officer in the Northern States in the Civil War in Kentucky (which was ended by disease) before he returned to Harvard in 1864, where he was lecturer in 1868 and professor in 1869 for paleontology and in 1888 for geology. From 1891 he was Dean of the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard and he was a popular teacher at Harvard.

After he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1869 , he became director of the Kentucky Geological Survey in 1873, which he remained until 1880. From 1884 to 1900 he was head of the Atlantic Coast Department of the US Geological Survey. In 1895 he became president of the Geological Society of America . In 1898 he was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters .

At first he, like his teacher Agassiz, was an opponent of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution , but later accepted it, which also incorporated Neo- Lamarckian ideas. He wrote many popular science books on geology and evolution, but also on geography, history and philosophy. Although he fought on the side of the Northern states in the Civil War, he was a defender of slavery and a racist who believed in the superiority of the white race.

As a geologist, he published on various topics of local geology (Boston area, Kentucky) including geology and roads, soil formation and swamps. The last two topics arose out of his interest in applied geology, the problems of land distribution and valuation of land in the context of settlement in the west and the reclamation of swamps for agriculture. Many of his popular geological and historical-geographical books dealt with the relationship between humans and the natural environment. His style is often characterized by an enthusiastic optimism about progress.

In 1909 he published his autobiography. He has also published a novel about Elizabeth I of England and poems about the Civil War.

The lunar crater Shaler is named after him. The same has been true of the Shaler cliffs in the East Antarctic Coatsland since 1972 .

Fonts

Books:

  • Editor and co-author: Geological Survey of Kentucky, 6 volumes, 1876–1882
  • The Geology of Boston and its Environs, in: The Memorial History of Boston 1880
  • Illustrations of the Earth's Surface: Glaciers, Boston 1881
  • A first book in geology, Boston 1884
  • Nature and Man in America, New York 1891
  • Kentucky, a Pioneer Commonwealth, Boston 1884
  • Aspects of the earth, New York 1889
  • The Story of Our Continent 1892
  • Sea and Land: Features of Coasts and Oceans, New York 1892
  • The Interpretation of Nature 1893
  • The United States of America, 2 volumes, 1894
  • Domesticated Animals, 1895
  • The Geology of the Road-Building Stones of Massachusetts 1895
  • American Highways 1896
  • Geology of the Cape Cod District 1898
  • Outlines of the Earth's History, New York 1898
  • Geology of the Narragansett Basin 1899
  • The Individual: Study of Life and Death 1900
  • A Comparison of the Features of the Earth and the Moon 1903
  • The Citizen: A Study of the Individual and the Government 1904
  • The Neighbor 1904
  • Man and the earth 1905
  • From old fields. Poems of the Civil War, 1906
  • The Autobiography of Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, with a supplementary memoir by his wife, Boston 1909

Some essays:

  • On the Formation of Mountain Chain, Geological Magazine, 5 (1868), pp. 511-517
  • Sea Coast Swamps of the Eastern United States, in: United States Geological Survey, Sixth Annual Report (Washington, DC, 1886), pp. 359-398
  • The Geology of the Island of Mount Desert, Maine, US Geological Survey, Eighth Annual Report (Washington, DC, 1889), pp. 987-1061
  • General Account of the Fresh-Water Morasses of the United States. With a Description of the Dismal Swamp District of Virginia and North Carolina, US Geological Survey, Tenth Annual Report (Washington, DC, 1890), pp. 255-339
  • The Origin and Nature of Soils, US Geological Survey, Twelth Annual Report (Washington, DC, 1892), pp. 213-345
  • Preliminary Report on the Geology of the Common Roads of the United States, Geological Survey, Fifteenth Annual Report (Washington, DC, 1895), pp. 255-306.

literature

  • Walter L. Berg, article Nathaniel Shaler in Dictionary of Scientific Biography (von Berg wrote his dissertation on Shaler at the University of Washington in 1957)
  • Obituary in Science, Volume 23, 1906, pp. 869-887.
  • John E. Wolf: Memoir of Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, Volume 18, 1908, pp. 592-608.

Web links

Commons : Nathaniel Shaler  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Nathaniel Shaler  - Sources and full texts (English)

References and comments

  1. ^ Members: Nathaniel S. Shaler. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed April 26, 2019 .
  2. ↑ For example, in an article The Negro Problem , Atlantic Monthly 1884
  3. ^ Walter Berg, Dictionary of Scientific Biography
personal data
SURNAME Shaler, Nathaniel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Shaler, Nathaniel Southgate (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American geologist and paleontologist
DATE OF BIRTH February 20, 1841
PLACE OF BIRTH Newport , Kentucky
DATE OF DEATH April 10, 1906
Place of death Cambridge , Massachusetts