The Age of Wonder (96 page)

Lavoisier, Marie-Anne (
née
Paulze;
later
Countess Rumford), 179, 248, 384

Lawrence, Sir William: on Park’s observations on African racial types, 233; Banks promotes, 307-8; disputes with Abernethy, 310, 312-13, 317, 403n; studies under Blumenthal, 310, 330; treats Shelley, 311; theoretical speculations, 312, 331, 336; admires Cabanis, 322; and figure of Dr Frankenstein, 328, 331; and Ritter’s death, 330; later career and honours, 336;
Lectures on the Natural History of Man,
51, 313, 318, 327, 336

Ledyard, John, 212

Lee, James, 11-12, 41

Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 67, 73

Lexell, Anders, 101, 208

Lichtenberg, Georg Christoph, 1-4

Life Force
see
Vitalism

Lind, Dr James, 47, 120-1 & n, 168, 171-2, 407

Linley, James, 76-7

Linley, Ozias, 77

Linnaeus, Carl (Carl von Linné), 2, 8-10, 43, 48

Lisbon earthquake (1755), 68, 383

Liverpool, Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of, 222

Lloyd, John, 56

Locke, John:
Essay Concerning Human Understanding,
69

Lockhart, John Gibson, 398

London: balloon ascents from, 138; coal-gas pipes, 382

London Missionary Society, 59n

Long Mead, Hertfordshire, 139

Louis XVI, King of France: and Montgolfier’s balloons, 126; meets Blanchard and Jeffries, 152; executed, 197

Loutherbourg, Philippe-Jacques de, 53-4

love: as creative cosmic force, 106-7

Lucretius, 106

Ludmar, West Africa, 216

Lunar Society, xix, 250, 256

Lunardi, Vincent: ballooning, 137-43, 155, 161; death, 159;
An Account of Five Aerial Voyages in Britain,
144

Lyell, Sir Charles, 448, 451, 459, 463;
Principles of Geology,
454-5

Lynmouth, Devon: Shelley sends up fire balloons from, 158

Lyons, Israel, 8

McEwan, Ian, 429n;
Enduring Love,
143n

Mackenzie, Henry, 398

Macquarie, Lachlan, 386

‘Machine-Man’ theories, 312

Maddox, Brenda:
Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA,
373n

Madrid Observatory: acquires Herschel telescope, 114

Malthus, Thomas, 447

Mandingo language, 215

Mansong (West African chief), 224, 228

Marcet, Jane, 179;
Conversations in Chemistry, Mainly intended for Young Females,
348

Martin, John:
Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion
(painting), 234

Martyn, Captain John, 223, 224-6, 228, 231

Martyn, Professor John, 8

Maskelyne, Margaret, 189

Maskelyne, Nevil: as Astronomer Royal, 10; friendship with Banks, 58; and Herschel’s theories on moon, 61-3, 94; special interests, 78; and Herschel’s relations with sister Caroline, 83; and Herschel’s discovery of Uranus, 98-101, 104, 208; cordial relations with Herschel, 101-2; tests and admires Herschel’s telescope, 109-10; visits Herschels at The Grove, Slough, 166, 168; praises Caroline Herschel’s discovery of comets, 174-5, 189; correspondence and friendship with Caroline, 175, 189, 193-6; Caroline rides to visit in Greenwich, 193-4

Méchain, Pierre, 101, 176, 181

medical science: advances in, 306-9; and nature of life, 314; alternative, 315n

Megan, Ensign, 225

Mellor, Anne K.: ‘A Feminist Critique of Science’, 436n

Mendel, Gregor, 48n

Mendeleyev, Dmitri, 247

Mesmer, Franz Anton, 125, 314

mesmerism, 125

Messier, Charles, 88 & n, 98, 100-2, 122, 124, 172, 188, 208

meteorology: understanding advanced by ballooning, 159-60

methane
see
fire-damp

Meudon, France: Corps d’Aerostation balloon school, 156

Michel, John, 83

Middleton, James:
Celestial Atlas,
409

Milky Way: Herschel’s views on, 122-3, 209;
see also
nebulae

Mill, John Stuart:
Autobiography,
441

Millett, Humphry (Davy’s nephew), 433

Milton, John, 304, 429;
Paradise Lost,
73, 85 & n, 197, 333, 457;
Areopagitica,
86n

Mimas (Saturn moon), 190

mind: development of, 331

miners’ safety lamp: Davy develops, 364-71, 374; Stephenson disputes Davy’s claim to priority in inventing, 371-5

Mitchill, Dr Samuel, 259

Molineux, Robert, 40

Möll, Gerard, 440

Monkhouse, Jonathan: as surgeon on
Endeavour,
4, 27, 33; quarrel with Banks, 29; death, 40

Montgolfier, Étienne, 126-7

Montgolfier, Joseph, xviii, 126-9, 131, 144, 159

Monthly Review,
208

moon: William Herschel’s studies of and theories on, 61-3, 87, 92-5, 199; John Herschel’s supposed discovery of life on, 464-5

Moore, John, Archbishop of Canterbury, 177-8

Moorehead, Alan:
The Fatal Impact,
18n, 59n

Moors: ill-treat Mungo Park, 216, 218

Morning Chronicle,
372

Morning Herald,
136

Morning Post,
139, 267

Morton, William Thomas, 284

Mount Wilson telescope, California, 84n

Murray, John (publisher), 307

Murray’s Family Library, 455, 458

Nancy (French refugee), 241-2, 250, 279

Napoleon I (Bonaparte), Emperor of the French: takes Balloon Corps to Egypt, 156; challenges Laplace’s atheism, 198; gives audience to Herschel, 200-1; crowned Emperor, 201; war with Britain, 212, 347; abandons plan to invade England, 297; Davy avoids in France, 353; escapes from Elba, 358

Napoleonic Wars: end (1815), 382, 386

National Coal Mining Museum, near Wakefield, 362n

Natural History Museum, South Kensington, 404n

Nature: discovery of, xviii; tendency to move to higher state, 315; as female beset by male science, 436n

Naturphilosophie,
315, 322, 329, 357, 426, 442, 443n

nebulae: Herschel’s views on, 88, 123, 192-3, 196-8, 205, 208-9; Herschels catalogue, 176

Nelson, Admiral Horatio, Viscount: telescope at Copenhagen, 77; defeats French at Aboukir Bay (1799), 156, 253; killed at Trafalgar, 295

Nerval, Gérard de:
Voyage en Orient,
227

New Monthly Magazine,
409

New York Sun,
464

New Zealand: exploration, 10, 38

Newcastle Chronicle,
371

Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society, 371, 375

Newgate Prison: Davy oversees ventilation scheme, 299, 363

Newman, John, 363

Newton, Sir Isaac: Wordsworth on, xvii, 320, 469n; and falling apple story, xvii-xviii, 456; Herschel brothers argue over, 67; invents reflector telescope, 78; genius, 94n; celestial mechanics, 106; optical experiments, 200, 247, 319; on measuring speed of light, 210; Lavoisier admires, 249; in Haydon painting, 319; knighthood, 342; in Byron’s
Don Juan,
385; John Herschel corrects on polarised light, 390; statue at new British Library, 404n; Davy on, 426; Coleridge on, 429 & n; Carlyle on, 436; Brewster writes biography, 454-6; in Mary Somerville’s
On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences,
458

Nicholson, William: experiments, 245, 274;
Dictionary of Chemistry,
244

Nicholson’s Journal,
245, 260, 382

Niger, river: exploration, 212, 214, 216-17, 222, 224-6, 229, 231, 381

Niger,
HMS, 9

Nîmes, 354 & n

nitrous oxide (’laughing gas’): Davy’s experiments with, 258-67, 269-70, 315n, 348; as anaesthetic, 262, 282-4; experiments satirised, 273; Davy discounts for therapeutic purposes, 281

North-West Passage, 395

Northcote, James, 267

Northumberland, Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of, 351

Novalis (Baron Frederick Leopold von Hardenberg), 315, 328

Nuna (Tahitian woman), 21-2

Oamo (Tahitian), 28

Obadee (Tahitian), 23

Oborea, Tahitian queen, 19, 23-4, 28-9, 35

O’Brian, Patrick:
Joseph Banks: A Life,
17n

Oersted, Hans Christian, 439, 444

Oliver, Dr William, 241

Omai (Tahitian), 18n, 49-52, 54

Omai, or a Trip Round the World
(pantomime), 54

Ordnance Survey (British): created, 160

Otheothea (Tahitian girl), 19, 23, 26, 28-9, 35

Oxford: balloon ascents from, 144-5, 156

oxygen: in respiration, 245-6; Lavoisier on, 254-5; Davy on, 255

pain: and consciousness and anaesthesia, 282-4, 305; Davy speculates on fishes’ experience of, 417-18

Paine, Thomas, 16n

Paley, William:
Natural Theology,
450, 454

Palmer, John, 89

Palmerston, Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount, 173

Pantisocracy, 252

Paolozzi, Sir Eduardo, 404n

Papendiek, Charlotte, 182, 184

papyri: Davy investigates, 376, 378

Paracelsus, 248

parallax, 90 & n

Paris: Herschel visits, 200-1; Davy in, 352-3

Paris, John Ayrton, 283, 400, 434

Park, Allison (née Anderson), 221-2, 226, 229, 231

Park, Mungo: first expedition to Africa, 211, 214-17, 230; background and character, 213; kindly treated by African women, 217-18; robbed and stripped by Moorish
banditti,
218-19; religious inspiration, 219-20, 450; return to London, 220-1; later career as doctor, 221; marriage and children, 221; second expedition to Africa (1805), 222-7, 231; given captain’s rank, 223; and death of brother-in-law Alexander Anderson, 225-6; writes farewell letters, 226, 231; final fate unknown, 228, 232, 381; journals and papers lost, 228n, 229; rumoured survival, 229; behaviour and manner, 230; achievements and influence, 232-4;
Journal of a Second Voyage,
229;
Memoir,
381;
Travels in the Interior of Africa,
215, 217, 221, 233

Park, Thomas (Mungo’s son): death seeking lost father, 229-31

Park Street, London, 397

Parkinson, Stanfield (ed.):
Journal of a Voyage on…the Endeavour,
44

Parkinson, Sydney: on
Endeavour
voyage, 11, 14; on Banks’s humanity, 15; drawings, 15, 48; troubled by flies, 17; on promiscuity in Tahiti, 18; on Banks’s quarrel with Monkhouse, 29; on leaving Tahiti, 35; death in Batavia, 40, 45; drawings officially appropriated, 44; journal published, 44-5

Parliamentary Select Committee on Mining Accidents (1835), 375

Parry, William Edward, 51, 232, 395-6, 404-5

Paulze, Marie-Anne see Lavoisier, Marie-Anne

Payne, William, 348

Peacock, Thomas Love, 233

Peel, Sir Robert: friendship with Davy, 403-4

Peninsular War, 347

Pennant, Thomas, 12, 40-1

Penzance, 236-7, 239, 241, 268, 400 & n

Penzance Grammar School, 434

Periodic Table, 247

Philosophical Magazine,
286

Phipps, Captain Constantine John
(later
2nd Baron Mulgrave), 9

phlogiston theory, 245

Physical and Medical Knowledge, principally in the West of England
(Beddoes’s annual), 154

Pilâtre de Rozier, Jean-François: ballooning, 129-31, 133, 148-9, 152, 161; killed on cross-Channel balloon flight, 153-5

Pisania, West Africa, 214-16

Pitt, John, 165, 182

Pitt, Mary see Herschel, Mary, Lady

Pitt, Paul, 165, 183-4, 202

Pitt, William, the Younger, 138, 223, 252

placebo effect, 314n

Plato: on wonder, xx

Playfair, John, 294, 315, 338, 369-70

Pneumatic Institute, Bristol, 235, 251, 253, 255-7, 265, 272, 278, 282, 285-6

pneumatics: as science and study, 245

Poe, Edgar Allan, 464

polar exploration, 395, 404-5

Pole Star: Herschel identifies as two, 87

Polidori, Dr William: travels with Byron, 307, 327; and Ritter, 330; ‘The Vampyre’, 327

Polwhele, Richard: ‘The Pneumatic Revellers’, 273

Poole, Tom, 265, 293, 353, 362, 401, 419-20, 424

Pope, Alexander:
Essay on Man,
322

Porter, Roy:
The Greatest Benefit to Mankind,
303n

potassium: Davy discovers, 297-8

Potin (Swedish scientist), 296

Presumption: or The Fate of Frankenstein
(play), 334-5

Priestley, Joseph: friendship with Joseph Wright of Derby, xix; Banks recruits for expedition, 47; discovers hydrogen with Cavendish, 127; and early ballooning, 137, 158; Blake satirises, 143; library burned by mob, 199; and phlogiston theory, 245; on photosynthesis, 245; on transformation processes, 247; Marie-Anne Paulze (Lavoisier) translates into French, 248; considers nitrous oxide lethal, 259; in Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein,
328; Davy praises, 344; British Association drinks to health of, 447;
Experiments on Different Kinds of Air,
127

Prix Napoléon: awarded to Davy, 299, 353

Provence, Josephine (of Savoy), Comtesse de (‘Madame’), 129

Public Characters: Biographical Memoirs of Distinguished Subjects
(series), 200, 303

Quarterly Review,
317-18, 446, 449

Queensberry, William Douglas, 4th Duke of, 177

race: classification, 311

Radcliffe, Ann, 53

Raffles, Sir Thomas Stamford, 404

rainbow, 319, 321, 323-4, 443

Ray, Martha, 53

Regent’s Park: zoological gardens, 404

religion: and science, 313 & n, 317-20, 449-50, 459

Rennell, Major John: ‘Sketch of the Northern Parts of Africa’, 212

Resolution,
HMS, 47

Resonico, Prince, 168

respiration, 245-6, 259

Revesby, 52

Reynolds, Sir Joshua: portrait of Banks, 43; portrait of Omai, 51; impressed by Lunardi’s ballooning, 140-1

Richmond, Tom, 14

Rickman, John, 53, 264

Ridley, Matthew, 429n

Ritchie, Joseph, 234

Ritter, Johann Wilhelm, 315, 328-30;
Fragments of a Young Physicist,
329