Robert Harkness

Robert Harkness (born July 28, 1816 in Ormskirk , Lancashire , † October 4, 1878 ) was a British geologist and paleontologist. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " R.Harkn. ".

Harkness went to school in Dumfries and studied at the University of Edinburgh from 1833 to 1834 , where lectures by Robert Jameson and James David Forbes sparked his interest in geology. In his homeland Ormskirk he researched the regional geology, especially coal deposits (Lancashire Coal Field) from the Carboniferous and the New Red Sandstone (sandstone from Permian and Triassic ) and published his first work in 1843 at the Manchester Geological Society on the climate of the Carboniferous. In 1848 he moved to Dumfries and explored the Silurian in south-west Scotland and from 1849 in Cumberland , the stratigraphy of the Silurian and its graptolites . He also published on the New Red Sandstone (Permian, Triassic) in Scotland and Northern England. In 1853 he became a professor of geology at Queen's College in Cork (now University College Cork ). During this time he was more concerned with the geology of Ireland, but also explored the Lake District in particular during his holidays . In 1870 he mentioned that there were probably elephants in Ireland too. He concluded this from the fact that mammoths were detected near Shandon Cave (Dungarvan, County Waterford), which he had recently visited.

He regularly attended the conferences of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Great Britain. When the teaching load in Cork became too great for him in 1878 (he was supposed to teach zoology and botany in addition to geosciences), he resigned from his professorship and died soon afterwards.

In 1856 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society and in 1854 of the Royal Society of Edinburgh .

literature

Obituary in: The Geological Magazine. New Series, Vol. 5, 1878, pp. 574-576
Harkness, Robert . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 12 : Gichtel - harmonium . London 1910, p. 953–954 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
Beryl Ambrose-Hamilton: Harkness, Robert. In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Volume 25: Hanbury – Hay. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861375-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004

Individual evidence

^ The Shandon Caves - Waterford Geology and Prehistoric Dungarvan. Retrieved May 12, 2019 .
^ Henry Woodward: Geological magazine . Cambridge University Press, London 1864, pp. 153 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
↑ entry on Harkness; Robert (1816 - 1878) in the Archives of the Royal Society , London
^ Fellows Directory. Biographical Index: Former RSE Fellows 1783–2002. (PDF file) Royal Society of Edinburgh, accessed December 16, 2019 .

personal data
SURNAME	Harkness, Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	British geologist and paleontologist
DATE OF BIRTH	July 28, 1816
PLACE OF BIRTH	Ormskirk
DATE OF DEATH	October 4, 1878

[1] The Shandon Caves - Waterford Geology and Prehistoric Dungarvan. Retrieved May 12, 2019 .

[2] Henry Woodward: Geological magazine . Cambridge University Press, London 1864, pp. 153 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).

[3] try on Harkness; Robert (1816 - 1878) in the Archives of the Royal Society , London

[4] Fellows Directory. Biographical Index: Former RSE Fellows 1783–2002. (PDF file) Royal Society of Edinburgh, accessed December 16, 2019 .