Paris
25/08/2011.
Good day with a reasonable amount done. The Library is closed tomorrow (Friday) so I made the most of what time I had. I got through MS 1723 and MS 1724. The former had a variety of dates ranging from 1827 to 1839 and locations from the American mainland as well as the Caribbean. Most of the fish species appear to be from cold-water rivers and streams. The latter had drawings from a wider range of dates 1818 to 1832 and again from a number of areas including "Wabash", "Boston", "Southfork", "? Floride", "Philadephia" and "Sandwich Connecticute". A very similar content was in MS 1725 and 1726, with excellent water-colour (gauche) paintings (little gems) studded throughout. Most about six inches by eight inches or smaller, with a small number double this length but folded over. I took a couple of representative photocopies but not enough to do justice to the body of work these manuscripts represent. It is obvious from the organisation of the work into sections based on fish order, that this is the compilation for a text.
I have not reached the earlier "Australian" voyage documents and I am off to Le Havre early next week. Madame Lemaire kindly brought out her file on the publications from the Le Havre Museum of Natural History. This gave me a head-start on searching that archive. Again a large body of work.
I will be back next Thursday.
No comments:
Post a Comment