Category Archives: Natural History

National Museums of Scotland

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Chambers Street, Edinburgh EH1 1JF

National Museum of Scotland

The oldest part of the building that houses the National Museum of Scotland was called the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art when it was opened by Prince Albert in 1866. Construction had began in 1861 and work was to continue on the first phase of the building until 1888. It was renamed the Royal Scottish Museum in 1904 and became the National Museum of Scotland in 2004. Initially much of the collection came from the University of Edinburgh’s natural history collection, which had become too big for the University’s own museum in what is now the Talbot Rice Gallery.

Free entry, although some temporary exhibitions may charge.

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House of Fleeming Jenkin

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3 Great Stuart Street, Edinburgh EH3 6AP

Fleeming Jenkin's house

Fleeming Jenkin was a professor of engineering at the University of Edinburgh who raised an important objection to Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. In 1867 Jenkin argued that any favourable mutation that arose in one individual of a species would  be rapidly swamped by interbreeding with a large population of normal individuals. This argument depended on the belief that characteristics of parents  were simply ‘blended’ in the offspring. The rise of modern genetics, which invalidated the ‘blending’ model of inheritance, eventually resolved this problem, but it presented a serious problem for Darwin’s theory at the time.

No public access.

Fleeming Jenkin (1833–85).

Fleeming Jenkin (1833–85).

 

 

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Challenger Expedition offices

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32 Queen Street, Edinburgh EH2 1JX

Challenger Expedition offices

Between the December 1872 and May 1876 the Challenger Expedition circumnavigated the globe and laid the foundations for modern oceanography. It had been organised by the Royal Society of London at the suggestion of Charles Wyville Thomson, Edinburgh University’s professor of natural history, and its offices were here at 32 Queen Street. The expedition took soundings, samples of sea water and collected specimens of marine life while traversing 68,890 nautical miles across the oceans of the world. The  report of the expedition, which was published between 1885 and 1895, came to 50 fat volumes.

No public access.

The HMS Challenger.

The HMS Challenger.

Charles Wyville Thompson (1830–82).

Charles Wyville Thompson (1830–82).

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