The Wernerian Natural History Society (January 12, 1808 – April 16, 1858), commonly abbreviated as the Wernerian Society, was a learned society interested in the broad field of natural history, and saw papers presented on various topics such as mineralogy, plants, insects, and scholarly expeditions. The Society was an off-shoot of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and from its beginnings it was a rather elite organization.
The Society was named after Abraham Gottlob Werner, a German geologist who was a creator of Neptunism, a theory of superposition based on a receding primordial ocean that had deposited all the rocks in the crust. At this time all rocks, including basalt, and crystalline substances were thought by some to be precipitated from solution.
Read more about Wernerian Natural History Society: History, Decline, Letters
Famous quotes containing the words natural, history and/or society:
“The natural role of twentieth-century man is anxiety.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it.”
—Denis Diderot (1713–1784)