An Ocean of Air (37 page)

For Robert Boyle, a good starting point is Michael Hunter's excellent Web site on Boyle at
www.bkk.ac.uk/Boyle
. Hunter is an eminent Boyle scholar, and as well as good material on Boyle, his site is full of useful references. Many of the books written about Boyle over the years hover between dull and sycophantic, but a few are highly readable. Three of the best sources that I found are Roger Pilkington,
Robert Boyle, Father of Chemistry
(London: John Murray 1959), which is vivid but sensible; Louis Trenchard More,
The Life and Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle
(London: Oxford University Press, 1944); and R. E. W. Maddison,
The Life of the Honourable Robert Boyle
(London: Taylor & Francis, 1969), which contains plenty of good detail and is well referenced. Also good is Thomas Farrington's
A Life of the Honourable Robert Boyle FRS, Scientist and Philanthropist
(Cork, Ireland: Guy & Co. Ltd., 1917).

But as with Galileo, the best way to read Boyle is in his own (admittedly sometimes lengthy) words. Try
Robert Boyle's Experiments in Pneumatics,
edited by James Bryant Conant, Harvard Case Histories in Experimental Sciences (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967), which contains plenty of quotes but also good context and analysis. Also recommended is
Robert Boyle by Himself and His Friends,
edited by Michael Hunter (London: Pickering & Chatto Ltd., 1994), which contains Boyle's own biographical sketch of his early life as well as biographical comments from various friends, and even a rather fulsome address delivered at his funeral.

Best of all is Boyle's own masterwork,
New Experiments Physico-mechanical Touching the Spring of the Air and its Effects (Made for the Most Part in a New Pneumatical Engine),
which contains all the wonderful details of his experiments with the air pump. This is where you will find Boyle's descriptions of his proof that air has spring, as well as his experiments with honey bees and mice, and the ones with birds that so distressed his lady visitor.

CHAPTER
2

In spite of the burning of his house and loss of his papers, enough of Joseph Priestley's considerable output survived to provide rich resources for those interested in finding out more about his life and work. Good places to start are "Joseph Priestley" in
Great Chemists,
edited by Eduard Faerber (New York: Interscience Publishers, 1961),
[>]
; and Robert E. Schofield's
The Enlightened Joseph Priestley
(University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004).

Two excellent articles are "Joseph Priestley: Public Intellectual," by Robert Anderson, in
Chemical Heritage Newsmagazine,
vol. 23, no. 1 (Spring 2005), and "Priestley, the furious free-thinker of the enlightenment, and Scheele, the taciturn apothecary of Uppsala," by John W. Severinghaus, in
Acta Anaesthesiologica Scandinavica,
vol. 46, pp. 2–9 (2002).

Of Priestley's own extensive writing, I would recommend Joseph Priestley,
Autobiography of Joseph Priestley, Memoirs Written by Himself, an Account of Further Discoveries in Air
(Bath, England: Adams & Dart, 1970), and Joseph Priestley,
A Scientific Autobiography,
edited with commentary by Robert E. Schofield (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1966).

W. R. Aykroyd,
Three Philosophers, Lavoisier, Priestley and Cavendish
(London: William Heinemann, 1935) is full of rich, lively descriptions and interesting insights. Another fascinating work is James Gerald Crowther,
Scientists of the Industrial Revolution: Joseph Black, James Watt, Joseph Priestley, Henry Cavendish
(London: Cresset Press, 1962).

For the science of oxygen, look no further than Nick Lane's marvelously rich and detailed
Oxygen: The Molecule that Made the World
(London: Oxford University Press, 2002).

There is a useful entry on Antoine Lavoisier in the
Dictionary of Scientific Biography.
For more detail, try Jean-Pierre Poirier,
Lavoisier: Chemist, Biologist, Economist,
translated from the French by Rebecca Balinski (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996). A bit drier, but still good, is Arthur Donovan,
Antoine Lavoisier: Science, Administration and Revolution
(Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

CHAPTER
3

The life of Joseph Black is well described in A. L. Donovan,
Philosophical Chemistry in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Doctrines and Discoveries of William Cullen and Joseph Black
(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1975), and in Sir William Ramsay,
The Life and Letters of Joseph Black, MD
(London: Constable & Co., 1918). Also see the excellent book by James Gerald Crowther,
Scientists of the Industrial Revolution: Joseph Black, James Watt, Joseph Priestley, Henry Cavendish
(London: Cresset Press, 1962).
Great Chemists,
edited by Eduard Faerber (New York: Interscience Publishers, 1961), has chapters on both Joseph Black and Svante Arrhenius.

For more about Stephen Hales, see D. G. C. Allan and R. E. Schofield,
Stephen Hales, Scientist and Philanthropist
(London: Scolar Press, 1980).

The richest source of information about John Tyndall is
John Tyndall: Essays on a Natural Philosopher,
edited by W. H. Brock, N. D. McMillan, and R. C. Mollan (Dublin: Royal Dublin Society, 1981). This book of essays examines Tyndall's life and work from many perspectives, some technical, some from the point of view of his religious, philosophical, and social values.

Many acres of trees have been chopped down to produce books about global warming, and some of the most worthily sacrificed were for Spencer R. Weart's excellent
The Discovery of Global Warming
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003). Also see
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co
2
.htm
, which gives a brief but accurate overview of the discovery of the greenhouse effect, with thumbnail sketches of the main characters.

CHAPTER
4

A fascinating discourse on almost every aspect of wind can be found in Lyall Watson's
Heaven's Breath
(London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1984). Among the many books about Christopher Columbus, I found some of the most useful to be Washington Irving,
The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus,
vol. 1 (London: Cassell & Co. Ltd., 1827), which is austere and ponderous but full of interesting detail; Samuel Eliot Morison's
Christopher
Columbus, Mariner
(London: Faber and Faber, 1956), which is much livelier and more entertaining, though occasionally a bit misleading (for instance, yes, Columbus had red hair, but by the time he embarked on his voyages it had already turned white); and David A. Thomas's
Christopher Columbus, Master of the Atlantic
(London: Andre Deutsch, 1991).

But there's nothing like reading the descriptions of the voyages in Columbus's own words. For this, go to
Christopher Columbus, the Journal of His First Voyage to America,
which is available in many editions. I used the one translated and with notes by Van Wyck Brooks (London: Jarrolds Publishers, 1925).

Shy William Ferrel left few of his own words behind, but there is a useful description of his life in the
Dictionary of Scientific Biography.
There's also an excellent entry on Ferrel in John D. Cox's fascinating
Storm Watchers
(Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2002),
[>]
.

As for his friends' recollections, there is a collection of memorial articles in the
American Meteorological Journal,
December 1891, vol. viii, no. 8, pp. 337–69. In the same journal, February 1888, vol. iv, no. 10, pp. 441–49, there is an obituary by Ferrel's friend Alexander McAdie. Another of Ferrel's closest friends, Cleveland Abbé, wrote an obituary in the
Bulletin of the Philosophical Society of Washington,
vol. 12, 1892, pp. 448–60. Most valuable of all, from the diffident Ferrel, is the brief outline of his life written himself after much urging from McAdie. This is in
Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences,
vol. 3 (1895), pp. 265–309. The same reference contains a memoir by Cleveland Abbé and a list of Ferrel's publications. See also "William Ferrel and American Science in the Centennial Years," by Harold L. Burstyn, in
Transformation and Tradition in the Sciences, Essays in Honor of I. Bernard Cohen,
edited by Everett Mendelsohn (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 337–51.

And of course there is Ferrel's own essay "An essay on the winds and currents of the ocean," which is the first entry in "Popular Essays on the Movements of the Atmosphere by Professor William Ferrel," published as number XII of the
Professional Papers of the Signal Service
(Washington, D.C., 1882).

For more about the science of the wind, see Roger G. Barry and Richard J. Chorley,
Atmosphere, Weather and Climate,
8th edition (London and New York: Routledge, 2003). I would respectfully suggest that this is the best textbook ever written about the movements of the air and the way they affect weather; it's no wonder it's in its eighth edition and counting.

The best source on Wiley Post is Bryan B. Sterling and Frances N. Sterling's
Forgotten Eagle: Wiley Post, America's Heroic Aviation Pioneer
(New York: Carroll & Graf, 2001). The book is now sadly out of print, but you can find it second hand. Beware, though: A printing error meant that the first copy I bought was missing the crucial (and fascinating) description of Post's stratospheric flights. Fortunately, I found a sympathetic second-hand bookstore owner in Cape Cod, who patiently leafed through his copy to check that it was all there before sending it to me in London.

And for more about the disappearing plane, see BBC Horizon's
Vanished: The Plane
that Disappeared,
which was broadcast on November 2, 2000. The transcript of this fascinating program is available on the Web at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon
/2000/
vanished.shtml.

CHAPTER
5

Thomas Midgley's life and work are nicely described in an essay by William Haynes in
Great Chemists,
edited by Eduard Faerber (New York: Interscience Publishers, 1961), pp. 1589–97, as well as "Thomas Midgley" in
Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement 3
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1941–45), pp. 521–23, and Charles Kettering's affectionate memoir of his friend in
Biographical Memoir of the National Academy of Sciences,
vol. xxiv, no. 11 (1947), pp. 361–80.

There is an excellent account of how it all went wrong and the rest of the ozone story in "An environmental fairytale" by Aisling Irwin in
It Must Be Beautiful, Great Equations of Modern Science,
edited by Graham Farmelo (London: Granta Books, 2002). A longer, but engaging and very readable, account is in Sharon Roan's
Ozone Crisis: The 15-Year Evolution of a Sudden Global Emergency
(New York: Wiley, 1989). John McNeill's stern book
Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth Century
(New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2000) contains a good section on "Climate change and stratospheric ozone." But the best read of all for the ozone wars and the rest of his extraordinary life is James Lovelock's marvelous autobiography,
Homage to Gaia: The Life of an Independent Scientist
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

The Nobel prizes Web site is also a rich source of both technical and biographical information about the ozone laureates and the context in which they worked. See http://
nobelprize.org/chemistry/laureates/
1995.

CHAPTER
6

Excellent descriptions of elves, jets, and sprites can be found in two
New Scientist
feature articles: "Bolts from the Blue" by Keay Davidson (August 19, 1995, p. 32) and "Rider on the Storm" by Harriet Williams (December 15, 2001, p. 36). For more details on the bizarre science of the ionosphere, try J. A. Ratcliffe,
Sun, Earth and Radio, an Introduction to the Ionosphere and Magnetosphere
(London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970). J. A. Harrison's
The Story of the Ionosphere or Exploring with Wireless Waves
(London: Hulton Educational Publications, 1958) is fun for its relentlessly 1950s schoolboy tone. For those who want something much more serious and detailed, there is Robert W. Schunk and Andrew F. Nagy's
Ionospheres: Physics, Plasma Physics and Chemistry
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

Of the many books written about Marconi and his achievements, I would recommend W. P. Jolly's
Marconi
(London: Constable, 1972); Orrin E. Dunlap's
Marconi: The Man and His Wireless
(New York: The Macmillan Co., 1937); and, in particular, Gavin Weightman's engagingly written
Signor Marconi's Magic Box: How an Amateur Inventor Defied Scientists and Began the Radio Revolution
(London: HarperCollins, 2003). Degna Marconi,
Marconi's daughter, also provides an interesting perspective in
My Father, Marconi
(London: F. Muller, 1962).

There are many fascinating memoirs written about the fabulous Oliver Heaviside. First stop would be the useful entry in the
Dictionary of Scientific Biography.
For a nice summary of Heaviside's scientific achievements, try the brief, polite obituary by A. Russell in
Nature,
vol. 115 (February 14, 1925),
[>]
. More entertaining is
The Heaviside Centenary Volume
(London: Institution of Electrical Engineers, 1950), which contains a collection of articles on Heaviside's work and several commentaries on his personality. Look in particular for the affectionate description of Heaviside's oddities by his good friend G. F. C. Searle, who expanded on this in a full-length book crammed with personal reminiscences,
Oliver Heaviside, the Man
(Cambridge, England: CAM Publishing, 1988). Also excellent reading is Paul J. Nahin's
Oliver Heaviside, Sage in Solitude
(New York: IEEE Press, 1988).