Darwin's Library

 

READ WHAT DARWIN READ
     I have presented other "private libraries", but this one is different, in that you can actually read the works in it, from the comfort of you own. Simply visit, Darwin Online. 
   The two libraries associated with Darwin, the one at Down House, his home in Downe, and the other at Cambridge, hold only a very small percentage of the books he read over his lifetime. In 1875, Darwin composed a "Catalogue of the Library of Charles Darwin", but many of the items listed on the 426 pages had been lost. Over 18 years, scholars have tracked down everything he read. "Darwin Online" now provides access to thousands of volumes and there are virtual links to over 9,000 of them. The leader of the project notes that:
“This unprecedentedly detailed view of Darwin’s complete library allows one to appreciate more than ever that he was not an isolated figure working alone but an expert of his time building on the sophisticated science and studies and other knowledge of thousands of people. Indeed, the size and range of works in the library makes manifest the extraordinary extent of Darwin’s research into the work of others.”
   This 'new' Darwin library contains novels and philosophical works as well as books in languages other than English. It even contains the works he had with him on the Beagle. See, "Charles Darwin's Beagle Library."
   As an example of the exotica to be found, here is one from Audubon taken from the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal. It relates to buzzards, but it is so interesting, I have included the link. 
Audubon, John James. 1826. "Account of the habits of the Turkey Buzzard (Vultura aura), particularly with the view of exploding the opinion generally entertained of its extraordinary power of smelling." Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal 2 (October-December): 172-184.

Sources: 
   Darwin Online is all that most of you will need and here is a press release about it from the National University of Singapore. 
   See also: "Researchers Reveal Lost Library of Charles Darwin For the First Time,"Ashley Strickland, CNN, Feb. 11, 2024 or "Contents of Charles Darwin's Entire Personal Library Revealed For First Time" by Mark Brown, The Guardian, Feb. 11, 2024.
   You can visit Darwin's home in Downe, Kent where there is soon to be a Halloween Celebration. 

Post Script: Private Libraries

  Since Mulcahy's Miscellany has no index, here are some of the other posts related to personal/private libraries, as opposed to, say libraries with people's names on them.

   You could start with "The Old Card Catalogue" which provides the catalogues of several private libraries.
Jefferson's Library

Stalin's Library

Mark Twain and Libraries
Oscar's Library
Library Furniture (the library at Althorp in Northamptonshire.)

Edward Gorey's Library
Professor Macksey's Library 
Professor Macksey's Library (Again)
The Talented Mr. Towles  (Amor Towle's Library)
Boys With Books (The libraries of Norman Mailer and Colin Wilson.)

Nature Writing (3)

 

The Wainwright Prize
   It is still much too nice outside to be blogging, so I will simply mention here some books which will be good to have once we have to retreat to the great indoors.
   Since Mulcahy's Miscellany has a small audience, I will cater in this case to the very small one that consists of the declining number of those in London,Ontario who maintain an affection for nature and Great Britain. The Wainwright Prize is a literary one, awarded for writing about nature and the outdoors in the now, not so United Kingdom. Here are some of the books.

Late Light, Michael Malay (the top prize.)
The Blue Machine: How the Ocean Works , Helen Czerski (a winner in the conservation category.)
Foxlight, Katya Balen, ( a novel for your grandchildren.)

Some others listed:
Dispersals: On Plants, Borders and Belonging, Jessica J. Lee
The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise, Olivia Lang.
Groundbreakers: The Return of Britain's Wild Boar, Chantal Lyons. 
Wasteland: The Secret World of Waste and the Urgent Search for a Cleaner Future, Oliver Franklin-Wells.

And even some CANCON:
Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast, John Vaillant. 

Additional Reading For Nature Lovers:
   The number "3" in the title above indicates there are others and here they are:
"Nature Writing (2) - British Version," discusses the Wainwright winners back in 2018.
"Nature Writing: Books That Have Won the John Burroughs Medal."
  Also back in 2018, this post provides the winners of an American Prize - "The John Burroughs Medal For Distinguished Nature Writing." 
For some other related books see, "Environmental Books" from the University of Washington Press.

More CANCON:
  The painting above is by Paul Peel and it depicts a natural setting in London, Ontario, known as "The Coves." It was displayed recently at a meeting of those who are trying to protect the area. For more see: "Friends of the Coves."

The Ig Nobel Prizes

 STEM Can Be Fun!

   It is still too bright out to be blogging. I need to post something for paying subscribers, however, and for those who stay inside because they are worried about UV rays, or because it is Friday the 13th.  Although I won't have to do much work, this post will keep you busy, especially if you watch the attached video which will take you a couple of hours. I wouldn't post anything that long if it wasn't funny.

   To learn about the Ig Nobel Prizes see my post from seven years ago about "The Nobel Prizes."  Cleverly concealed, along with the "Igs", you will find information about such things as, The Annals of Improbable Research and The Journal of Irreproducible Results. As well, make sure to check the bonus, "The Order of the Golden Fleece."
   This week, the 34th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony was held at MIT. One of the winners from 2021 is pictured above. He was hung upside down in a study designed to see how rhinos reacted when hung upside down. This year some of the winners include: 
"Demography: Saul Justin Newman, for discovering that people famous for having the longest lives lived in places that had lousy birth-and-death record keeping.

Biology: Fordyce Ely and William E. Petersen, for exploding a paper bag next to a cat standing on the back of a cow, to explore how and when cows spew their milk."

    B. F. Skinner finally won an award for a paper done in the 1960s on “the feasibility of housing live pigeons inside missiles to guide their flight paths,” (let's hope the folks at Boeing read it.) The award was accepted by his daughter, who threw her cap into the crowd.
   If you still need more incentive to read my old post, I will add that it also included a short review of the book, Curious Behavior: Yawning, Laughing, Hiccupping, and Beyond. If it is CANCON you are looking for, see the chapter in that book which is on "Farting and Belching." 
   The video of the ceremony is found here. I forgot to mention that the winner receives 10 trillion Zimbabwean dollars.

P.S.
As mentioned, the ceremony was hosted by MIT. If you are still trying to avoid the sun, or something else, see the post in MM about "MIT Press" where you can read something from their "Essential Knowledge Series," to make up for the time you squandered here.

   

Light Reading for Labour Day

 Or "Labor" Day if you are from farther south and prefer shorter spellings. It is a nice day here in London, but before I go out to enjoy it, here are a couple of short items in case it is not nice where you are. 

Curious About the Curtis Cup? 
   It is highly likely that you missed this sporting event since there are many others at this time of year and you probably aren't interested in golf anyway. The Curtis Cup is for girls, what the Walker Cup is for guys. That is, they are golf events where the best amateur players from the U.S. compete against those from Great Britain and Ireland. This year, the GB&I team defeated the Americans at Sunningdale in England. 
   About the Cups, you can easily learn more by reading the sporting news from last weekend or consulting Wikipedia. I was curious, however, about the composition of the GB&I team and was willing to wager that most of the players on it had been playing their golf in the country which they defeated. My hunch was correct.
   If you don't watch much golf you may not know that golfers with the most exotic of names mostly seem to have attended universities located in the sunnier areas of the United States (I am speaking here about White players with foreign-looking names, not Black ones with unusual ones.) One assumes that foreign golfers don't have to take the usual tests required, because they are clearly smart enough to realize that getting a free, expensive university education while playing golf in a warn place is a good deal.
   Eight of the players on the GB&I team are listed below, along with the universities they attended. Only one went to a British university and, unsurprisingly it is one of the few in that country that offers financial support. I did not check the universities of the American players, but assume that most did not go abroad. 
   Here are the players. To make it a bit more challenging, I have provided the names of the teams, not the universities. For example, one of the Rhodes sisters, Euphemie, became a Deacon, while Patience became a Sun Devil. 

Lottie Woad - Seminole

Sara Byrne - Hurricane

Aine Donegan - Tiger

Hannah Darling - Gamecock

Beth Coulter - Sun Devil

Patience Rhodes - Sun Devil

Euphemie Rhodes - Deacon

Lorna McClymont - University of Sterling

*** Speaking of unusual names, Asterisk Talley beat Lottie Woad in the last match. She is 15. 

Al Pacino and Me
   There is a chance that you are more interested in Al than me, so that is Al pictured above. It is that picture that led to this post. It was noticed in a recent issue of the New Yorker which offers a portion of Pacino's new biography ("An Exclusive Excerpt From Al Pacino's Memoir, Sunny Boy: Personal History, Early Scenes," August 26, 2024. 

   Given that you are not interested in me, I will point out that I am dressed as Hopalong Cassidy in the picture above and he is marginally more interesting. I think I received the costume from an aunt and there was plenty of Hoppy memorabilia available for purchase. 

  Although Al was from the very urban South Bronx in New York and I was from the more rural Eastern Shore of Maryland, you may have noticed that we were both armed. Those were different times.

  If it was not such a nice day, I would go on about kids and guns and whether children should now be allowed to pretend and play with them - even Nerf guns or water pistols. Instead, read up about old "Hoppy" or wait a bit for Pacino's book.

  That is my picture, as I am now. Since not much of interest has been presented, here are a couple of tidbits you can read without much labour. 
  Pacino is older than I am, but he is much more active. At the age of 83, he just produced another child. Perhaps he is just trying to stay ahead of his old pal De Niro who had one at 79.  Pacino's partner, by the way, is more than 50 years younger than he is and he has other children, but has had no wives.
  He also has a better memory than I, since he recalls events that happened when he was four.