CHAPTER VI 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 



Introductio7i 



SCIENCE of the eighteenth century merged imperceptively into that 

 of the nineteenth. Perhaps the century is best characterized as 

 one of specialization. An important new development was the 

 founding of periodicals devoted to particular branches of science, 

 in contrast to the publications of societies and academies, which 

 embraced a gieat variety of knowledge. Beginning in the seventeen- 

 nineties and early eighteen-hundreds, many new chemical and physi- 

 cal journals were started. They contained articles on all types of 

 luminescence. These periodicals were usually known by the name 

 of their editor— Voigt's or Tilloch's Magazines, Schweigger's or 

 Scherer's or Delametherie's Journals, Crell's or Lavoisier's or Gil- 

 bert's Ayinals, Karsten's or Kastner's Archives, etc. Their policy 

 was determined by the editor. For example, Ludwig Wilhelm Gil- 

 bert (1769-1824) , professor of physics, first at Halle and then at 

 Leipzig, who edited the Annalen der Physik for twenty-seven 

 years, took special interest in luminous phenomena. He translated 

 Macartney's (1810) article on luminous animals and reproduced 

 Macartney's plate in Vol. 61 (1819). This volume was practically 

 devoted to phosphorescence of the sea and contained the observa- 

 tions of Tilesius and many other world explorers. Although it had 

 been recognized since 1750 that many small luminous animals which 

 lived in the sea were at times responsible for its phosphorescence, 

 and several observers had expressed the opinion that diffuse sea-light 

 was due to minute organisms, in 1800 there was still considerable 

 doubt as to whether every display could be traced to animalcules. 

 Moreover, the light of dead fish, meat, and wood had not yet been 

 correctly explained and was not thought of as due to living or- 

 ganisms. Such phenomena were still a subject of particular interest 

 to physicist and chemist rather than biologist. Biological journals 

 began to appear in the second half of the century. 



With the advent of exploration for science rather than for con- 

 quest, expeditions brought back great collections of animals, to- 

 gether with accounts of new luminous species from the sea. The 

 first book on luminescence published during the nineteenth cen- 

 tury, Uber das Leuchten des Meeres (1803), by Christoph Ber- 



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