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The Role of Travels in the Internationalisation of Nineteenth Century Portuguese Geological Science

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Part of the book series: Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science ((BSPS,volume 233))

Abstract

This paper focuses on the importance of travelling to the internationalisation of Portuguese geology, in the nineteenth century, taking into consideration both the mainland and overseas territories. First, however, it is worth analysing the context in which this process occurred.

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  1. A. Carneiro, A. Simöes, M. P. Diogo, “Enlightenment Science in Portugal: the Estrangeirados and their Networks of Communications,” Social Studies of Science, 30 (2000), 591–619; M. P. Diogo, A. Carneiro, A. Simöes, “The Portuguese Naturalists Copia da Serra (1751–1823) and his Impact on Early Nineteenth-century Botany,” Journal of the History of Biology, 34 (2001), 353–393.

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  2. David Oldroyd, Thinking About the Earth: A History of Ideas in Geology (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996), pp. 108–130.

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  3. st item of the decree signed by the Duke of Saldanha then Prime Ministe, 2 May 1849. Copy of the decree signed by the Duke of Saldanha, National Archive of Torre do Tombo, Ministério do Reino, 1852, 3’ Direcçäo, 2a Repartiçäo, Proc. 392, Liv. 11, folhas 3390.

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  4. R. M. C. Branco, O Desenvolvimento da Cartografia Territorial em Portugal no século XIX (unpublished M.A. thesis, Faculty of Human and Social Sciences, New University of Lisbon, 1999), p. 17

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  5. It is worth remarking that the role of military officers in the development of science and technology in nineteenth century Portugal has yet to be fully assessed.

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  6. Expression coined by Bruno Latour to mean centres where specimens, maps, diagrams, logs, questionnaires and paper forms are accumulated and used by scientists and engineers. See B. Latour, Science in Action. How to Follow Scientist and Engineers through Society (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1987), p. 232.

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  7. M. F. Monica, Eça de Queirós (Lisboa: Círculo dos Leitores, 2000), and Fontes Pereira de Melo (Lisboa: Ediçöes Afrontamento, 1999).

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  8. J. M. de Oliveira Simöes, “Os Serviços Geológicos em Portugal,” Comunicaçóes dos Serviços Geológicos de Portugal, 14 (1923), 5–123 and F. Moitinho de Almeida, A. Barros e Carvalhosa, `Breve Historia dos Serviços Geológicos em Portugal,“ Comunicaçöes dos Serviços Geológicos de Portugal, 53 (1974), 241–265.

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  9. Relatorio da Commissâo Geologica do Reino, â cerca da viagem feita aos diversos paizes da Europa pelo membro da mesma Commissâo Carlos Ribeiro (Lisboa, 31 January 1859) (typescript), pp. 2–3, IGM Historical Archive, Bookcase 1, Shelf 2, Box 9, File 7.

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  10. Letter from the Viscount of Paiva dated 13 July 1858, IGM Historical Archive, Bookcase 1, Shelf 2, Box 9, File 6.

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  11. According to Ribeiro’s description, the impressive amount of items was kept in cupboards in accordance with their geographic location, labelled with reference numbers and nothing else. The investigations of many engineers, private collectors and French geologists were published in journals such as Bulletin de la Société Géologique de France and the Annales des Mines, which led the French Geological Survey to give up the organisation and coordination of the collections. This is why in his report he only acknowledges the size and the importance of the collections. In fact, they were not of much use for the comparative work undertaken by Carlos Ribeiro. Ribeiro, op. cit. (13), pp. 3–4.

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  12. Elie de Beaumont advised Ribeiro to write a memoir to be presented at the Institut de France. Beaumont would take care of appointing a commission to examine the results of Ribeiro’s comparative study of fossil species. In this way the Portuguese classification was given credibility. Ribeiro, op. cit. (13), p. 4.

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  13. Carlos Ribeiro observed that the zoological collection gathered all species and known varieties of any formation belonging to the Tertiary. Each species and genus was arranged in both chronological and geological order, and the genera and species which defined the type were singled out. To each genus collection was added one or more species belonging to periods prior to the Tertiary and chosen according to the greatest number of affinities with the type. In this way a table was constructed in which not only could one see the period in which each genus emerged for the first time in the scale of beings but also the changes that the vanished species went through. The table also showed the new species that had meanwhile emerged from the first Tertiary strata until the Quaternary, and the type by which they were represented in contemporary living forms. This collection of Tertiary fossils included an impressive number of fossils from all European Tertiary basins with the exception of Portugal and Spain. Ribeiro, op. cit. (13), pp. 6–7.

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  14. In order to classify the species Carlos Ribeiro arranged to meet with Deshayes two days every week. Ribeiro would choose a certain sample of fossils, which he would show to Deshayes to be verified. He also set aside new species, the whole work taking two and a half months. Regarding the echinoderms Deshayes asked J. L. Michelin (1786–1867) for help. Like Deshayes, Michelin allowed the Portuguese Survey to announce the new species publicly. Concerning the vertebrate fossils of the Tagus basin, it was Paul Gervais (1816–1879), then professor of comparative anatomy at the Science Faculty of Montpellier, who revised the classification. However, this process was extremely time-consuming, which prompted Ribeiro to ask Deshayes to undertake a revision of the whole Portuguese collection, while he visited other countries. Deshayes agreed. Ribeiro, op. cit. (13), p. 8.

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  15. Homes appointed Carlos Ribeiro as corresponding member of the Vienna Institute and offered the Portuguese Survey a copy of all works published by the Institute. He promised to send publications regularly to Lisbon. Ribeiro, op. cit. (13), p. 20.

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  16. An expert on Cretaceous faunas, he was then working on the divisions of Foraminifera. He offered the Portuguese Survey various publications and promised to send a collection of those fossils. Ribeiro, op. cit. (13), p. 23.

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  17. However, the fog and intense rain forced Ribeiro to leave Bohemia due to severe rheumatism. Ribeiro, op. cit. (13), p. 26. See also a letter from Ribeiro to Hörnes, Paris, 5 November 1858, in which he complains bitterly of his rheumatism. IGM Historical Archive, Bookcase 1, Shelf 2, Box 9, File 6.

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  18. Sismonda invited Ribeiro to stay at his country house but Ribeiro’s rheumatic problems led him to refuse this visit to the Alps. Ribeiro, op. cit. (13), p. 29.

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  19. Professor of geology at the local Science Faculty he was in charge of drawing the geological map of Haute Garone and of the French Pyrenees.

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  20. Schultz discussed with Ribeiro the phytogenic rocks of Galicia (Spain) whose geology is related to that of the Portuguese provinces of Trás-os-Montes and Minho. Ribeiro, op. cit. (13), p. 33.

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  21. Concerning its geological and mineralogical classification the Portuguese Geological Survey had available Delesse, a mining engineer then teaching geology at the Ecole Normale. He was an expert on metamorphism and took the initiative to classify rocks collected in Portugal. Ribeiro recognised the need to apply inorganic chemistry, but the personnel of the Portuguese Survey, being only composed of three people, did not allow the creation of a speciality devoted to chemical testing. That is why he restricted his purchases of chemical apparatus, and only bought what was strictly necessary for qualitative analysis of rocks. Ribeiro, op. cit. (13), p. 18.

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  22. Ribeiro took a course on photography at the conchology laboratory of the Jardin des Plantes. Ribeiro, op. cit. (13), p. 11.

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  23. He bought second-hand publications because they were obviously cheaper and subscribed to the following journals: Jou rn al de Conchyliologie s Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences, L’Institut —Journal Scientifaque, Annales des Mines de France, The Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, The American Journal of Sciences and Arts by Silliman,Archive von Karston as Dechen, Neues Jahrbuch für Mines Geol. and Paleont. von Leonard and Bronn, and Revista Minera d’Espan“a among others. Ribeiro, op. cit. (13), pp. 12–13.

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  24. It was particularly important to the Portuguese Survey, because Ribeiro had considered it the most similar to the Tertiary basins of the Tagus and the Guadiana. Ribeiro, op. cit. (13), p. 14.

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  25. Part of this collection was already in Lisbon at the beginning of 1859. It included about 1400–1800 species and the price paid had been about 1600 French francs. Carlos Ribeiro also wished to buy a collection exclusively composed of Mediterranean molluscs and species which inhabited the Portuguese and the Spanish coast. In all the places he visited, Trieste, Veneza, Padua, Turin, Paris, and Vienna, he did not find a single collection available. Homes recommended a naturalist living in Cairo who was about to send collections to Vienna and Trieste. Carlos Ribeiro asked him to include the Portuguese Geological Survey provided the collection was well preserved and the costs involved did not exceed 500 Florins. Ribeiro, op. cit. (13), pp. 15–16.

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  26. So far, in the research carried out at the IGM Historical Archive some correspondence between Carlos Ribeiro and Deshayes has been found. IGM Historical Archive Bookcase 1, Shelf 2, Box 9, File 6.

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  27. Other contacts established in the early days of the Survey included Bernardino Antonio Gomes (1806–1877), who graduated in medicine from the University of Paris, worked as a palaeobotanist and seems to have had connections in Germany, viz. with German stratigrapher G.E. Geinitz (1854–1925) in Stuttgart, and Czech palaeobotanist O. Feistmantel (1848–1891) in Breslau, to whom fossil samples from the Carboniferous were apparently sent by Pereira da Costa. See M. Telles Antunes, “Sobre a Historia da Paleontologia em Portugal” in Historia e Desenvolvimento da Ciência em Portugal (Publicaçoes do II Centenario da Academia das Ciências de Lisboa) (Lisboa: Academia da Ciências, 1986), vol. 2, pp. 773–814

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  28. See Carlos Ribeiro and F. A. Pereira da Costa, “Relatorio. — Noticia sobre a Comissäo Geologica de Portugal e seus trabalhos,” Lisboa, 4 de Abril de 1864, p. 5 (typescript included in Carlos Ribeiro, Geologia Varia I), where they state that apart from Gomes, who was describing and classifying plant fossils, the Survey had no other external collaborators. Interestingly enough, the report was sent to the Italian geologist Cristoforo Negri (?-?) who published it in the Atti della Societa Italian di Scienze Naturali, 8 (1865).

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  29. See Antunes, op. cit. (32), pp. 794–6 for further details on this episode. Also Moitinho de Almeida and Barros e Carvalhosa, op. cit. (7), 241–65.

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  30. J. F. Néry Delgado, “Elogio Histórico do General Carlos Ribeiro,” Revista de Obras Públicas e Minas, 36 (1905), 19–21. See also Paul Choffat, “Notice Nécrologique sur Carlos Ribeiro,” Bulletin de la Société Géologique de France, [3], 11 (1883), 325.

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  31. Apart from its senior geologists, Carlos Ribeiro, a military engineer, and Pereira da Costa, a professor of geology and mineralogy at the Lisbon Polytechnic School, the Geological Survey had originally included two junior members: Néry Delgado, also a military engineer, and Antonio Augusto Aguiar (1838–1887), a professor of inorganic chemistry at the Polytechnic, although the latter only stayed with the Survey between 1862–64.

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  32. J. F. Néry Delgado, “Relatórios sobre a Reorganizaçâo dos Serviços Geológicos apresentados ao Ministro das Obras Públicas,” Communicaçöes da Commisstio do Serviço Geologico de Portugal, 7 (1907–1909), 171

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  33. During the period under discussion and up to 1878, Ribeiro and Delgado also carried out research in their respective fields of study and did some work of a more practical nature. For further details see Choffat, op. cit. (34), p. 325 and J. M. Cotelo Neiva, “A Geologia em Portugal no Século XIX” in Historia e Desenvolvimento da Ciência em Portugal (Publicaçöes do II Centenario da Academia das Ciências de Lisboa) (Lisboa: Academia das Ciências, 1986), vol. 2, pp. 723–5.

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  34. See Vanda Leitâo, “The Travel of the Geologist Carlos Ribeiro (1813–1882) to Europe, in 1858,” S’l’EP Meeting, Lisbon, September 2000.

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  35. This mission was carried out between 28 May and 12 August 1878.

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  36. Néry Delgado, Relatori da Commissâo Desempenhada em Hespanha no Anno de 1878 por Joaquim Filipe Nery Delgado, adjunto da Secçâo dos Trabalho Geologicos do Reino (Lisboa: Typographia da Academia Real das Sciencias, 1879).

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  37. C. Ribeiro, Néry Delgado, Portuguese Geological Map (1:500,000), Lisbon, 1876.

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  38. Néry Delgado, Terrenos Paleozoicos de Portugal. Sobre a Existencia do Terreno Siluriano no Baixo Alemtejo, (Lisboa: Typographia da Academia Real das Sciencias, 1876), or its French version Terrains Paléozoïque du Portugal. Sur l’Existence du Terrain Silurien dans le Baixo-Alemtejo (Lisboa: Typographia da Academia Real das Sciencias, 1876).

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  39. As he concludes: “If my visit to Huelva did not clarify me completely about the Silurian stretch of S. Domingos, and if in the research carried out by Tarin I could see no good reasons to change the results obtained in Portugal, the discoveries made near Ensinasola shed an intense light which will greatly help me in pursuing my future investigations”. Néry Delgado, op. cit. (45), p. 9.

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  40. Up to now only this first meeting has been the subject of historical analysis in a paper authored by Ellenberger, but the subsequent meetings still remain to be analysed. F. Ellenberger, “The First International Geological Congress, Paris, 1878,” Episodes, 1 (1978), 20–24.

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  41. It is worth remarking that in these matters also Portuguese and Spanish geologists were to make joint contributions and to enter into discussions both for the purposes of the European Geological Map and on matters of nomenclature. In preparing the meetings of the International Geological Congress of Bologna of 1881, and that subsequently held in Berlin 1884, two reports of the Portuguese sub-commission of nomenclature were published. Néry Delgado, P. Choffat, “Rapport des membres Portugais des Sous-Commissions Hispano-Lusitaniennes en vue du Congrès Géologique International devant avoir lieu à Bologne en 1881,” Jornal de Sciencias Mathematicas, Physicas e Naturaes, 39 (1884), 1–18; “Rapport de la Sous-Commission Portugaise de nomenclature en vue do Congrès géologique international devant avoir lieu à Berlin en 1884,” Communicaçóes da Secçâo dos Trabalhos Geológicos, 1 (1884) 19–32.

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  42. Néry Delgado, Fieldwork notebook kept at the IGM Historical Archive, Bookcase 10, Shelf 3, Box 20.

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  43. Néry Delgado, “Officio acerca das resoluçóes tomadas no congresso de Geologia,” in Néry Delgado, Relatorio e Outros Documentos Relativos à Comissâo Scientifica Desempenhada em diferentes Cidades da Italia, Allemanha e França, por Joaquim Filippe Nery da Encarnaçâo Delgado, (Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional, 1882). This document was addressed to Carlos Ribeiro, Director of the Portuguese Geological Survey.

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  44. Before and after the Bologna meeting Delgado and Capellini exchanged correspondence. Capellini was also a stamp collector and on several occasions asked Delgado to send him collections of Portuguese stamps. See letters from Capellini dating especially from 1894, Bookcase 10, Shelf 1, Box 6. This correspondence was handled by Dr. Antonio Carvalhosa, to whom we are very grateful.

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  45. The word formation that the British and the Germans used to signify terrain or étage, from now onwards should be used as suggested by the French committee to mean the process of formation. It was allowed to say “sedimentary formation” or “eruptive formation” but not, as before, “Jurassic formation” or “Silurian formation”. See “Résolutions votées par le Second Congrès Géologique International, 2ème Session, Bologne, 1881,” in Néry Delgado, op. cit. (57), p. 67. His italics.

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  46. Initially France, Britain, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Germany and Russia. As the President was German, Germany gave its place to Italy and because the Swiss geologist Eugène Renevier (1831–1906) had made an important contribution on this matter, he was also appointed to this commission. Néry Delgado, op. cit. (57), p. 60–61.

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  47. According to Néry Delgado the numbers are as follows. Meeting held in Paris, 1878: of 304 participants, 194 were French and 110 were foreigners from 20 different countries. Meeting held in London: of 835 participants, 348 were foreigners from 26 countries. Those who effectively participated were 380, 140 being foreigners and from the British colonies. Néry Delgado, Relatório Acerca da Quarta Sesstio do Congresso Geologico Internacional realisada em Londres, no Mez de Setembro de 1888, por Joaquim Filippe Nery da Encarnaçâo Delgado (Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional, 1889).

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  48. To Delgado, Nereites and associated forms were not remains of marine plants, nor were they traces of worms as many palaeontologists believed. Rather they were prints of bodies of annelids. See Néry Delgado, Etudes sur les fossiles des schistes à Nereites de San Domingos et des schistes à Nereites et graptolites de Barrancos (ouvrage posthume) (Lisboa: Typographia da Academia Real das Sciencias, 1910).

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  49. Néry Delgado, Terrenos Paleozóicos de Portugal. Sobre a existência do terreno siluriano no Baixo Alemtejo (Lisboa: Typographia da Academia Real das Sciencias, 1876).

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  50. Néry Delgado, P. Choffat, Geological Map of Portugal (1:500,000), Lisboa, 1899.

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  51. Néry Delgado, Système du silurique du Portugal. Etude de stratigraphie paléontologique (Lisboa: Typographia da Academia Real das Sciencias, 1908).

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  52. On Marr’s work see, D. Oldroyd, “John Edward Man (1857–1933. The Foremost Lake District Geologist of His Era,” Proceedings of the Cumberland Geological Society, 6 (2000, for 1998–1999), 361–379.

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  53. J. E. Man, “On the Predevonian Rocks of Bohemia,” Quarterly Journal of the London Geological Society, 36 (1880), 591–619.

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  54. According to the same historian, Murchinson’s adherence to colonies was not straightforward. In the first edition of his book Siluria: A history of the oldest known rocks containing organic remains, with a brief sketch of the distribution of gold over the earth (London: John Murray, 1854) he did not mention Barrande’s colonies, in the second edition of 1859, p. 401, he mentions them but not with entire acceptance. They were given full prominence in the third edition of 1867, p. 380. See D. Oldroyd, The Highlands Controversy. Constructing Knowledge through Fieldwork in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press, 1990), p. 224.

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  55. For Barrande’s controversies, which went on for about 20 years, see J. Perner, “Les colonies de Barrande,” Bulletin de la Société Géologique de France, [5], 7 (1937), 51352. For a comparison of Barrande’s interpretations with modern stratigraphy see J. Kriz, J. Porjeta Jr., `Barrande’s Colonies Concept and a Comparison of his Stratigraphy with the Modern Stratigraphy of the Middle Bohemian Lower Paleozoic Rocks (Barrandian) of Czechoslovakia,“ Journal of Palaeontology, 48 (1974), 489–494.

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  56. M. J. S. Rudwick, The Meaning of Fossils. Episodes in the History of Palaeontology (Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press, 1972); Oldroyd, op. cit. (2); M. T. Green, Geology in the Nineteenth Century. Changing Views of a Changing World (Ithaca/London, Cornell University Press, 1982).

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  57. Goulven Laurent, Paléontologie et Evolution en France, 1800–1860 (Paris: Editions du CTHS, 1987).

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  58. Reply from Eduardo Benot, Madrid 8 August 1878, IGM Historical Archive, Bookcase 10, Shelf 1, Box 5.

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  59. Néry Delgado says that at last he had met Hébert personally at the Bologna meeting after many years of correspondence.

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  60. Throughout the nineteenth century French savants often complained about the inadequacy of their research facilities and compared them with the German, often with a mixture of admiration and nationalistic revulsion. H. W. Paul, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. The French Scientist’s Image of German Science, 1840–1919 (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1972).

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  61. The precise circumstances of the encounter between Carlos Ribeiro and Paul Choffat are as yet unknown, although the two geologists certainly met, since a reference to such a meeting is to be found in a letter from Choffat to the Head of the Portuguese Geological Survey from Zurich, dated 29 October 1878 (IGM Historical Archive, Bookcase 12, Shelf 3, Box 64). Choffat’s biographers tend to assume that the meeting took place in Paris, at the Congress itself. See E. Fleury, “Une phase brillante de la Géologie portugaise. P. Choffat 14 mars 1849–6 juin 1919,” Mémoires publiés par la Société Portugaise des Sciences Naturelles, Série Géologique,3, (1920), 4; also J. M. Oliveira Simóes, “Biografia de Geólogos Portugueses,” Comunicaçóes dos Serviços Geológicos de Portugal, 13 (1919–1922), vii-viii; and J.L. de Vasconcellos, “Paul Choffat,” O Archeologo Português, 24 (1919–20), 298.

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  62. There are several short biographies on Paul Choffat. The most comprehensive article is by Fleury, op. cit. (96), from which most of the biographical information included in this paper was taken.

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  63. A former student of Elie de Beaumont (1798–1874), Jules Thurmann was the author of an Essai sur les soulèvements jurassiques and a well-known figure in Porrentruy, where he promoted the study of the natural sciences.

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  64. He mentions other influences: the stratigrapher A. Gressly (1814–1865) who developed the notion of facies, the palaeontologist J.B Greppin (?-1881) who published a geological description of the Jura formations in the Bern region and mining inspector and geologist A. Quiquerez (1801–1882), among others. Fleury, op. cit. (96), 4.

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  65. For a discussion of the contributions made by these two leading Swiss geologists, see A. V. Carozzi, “La géologie en suisse des débuts jusqu’à 1882 - digression sur l’histoires de la géologie suisse depuis Konrad Gesner (1565) jusqu’à Heinrich Wettstein (1880),” Eclogae geol. Helv., 76/1 (1983), 12–14, 19–20. On Heim’s role in the institutionalisation of Swiss geology see also W. K. Nabholz, “Die Gründung der Schweizerischen Geologischen Gesellschaft und ihre seitherige Entwicklung,” Eclogae geol. Helv., 76/1 (1983), 33–45.

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  66. Hungarian stratigrapher and structural geologist L. Lóczy (1849–1920. Swiss palaeobotanist O. Heer (1809–1883), author of Flora tertiaria Helvetiae (1855–59) and Die Urwelt der Schweiz (1865), a major early work in palaeoecology. French stratigrapher and palaeontologist K. Mayer-Eymar (1826–1907. French stratigrapher, structural geologist and palaeontologist J. Marcou (1824–1898.

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  67. J. MacPherson (1839–1902), Spanish structural geologist and stratigrapher.

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  68. Letter from Choffat to Ribeiro, Lisbon, 26 November 1878, IGM Historical Archive, Bookcase 12, Shelf 3, Box 64.

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  69. J. F. Néry Delgado, “Les Services Géologiques du Portugal de 1857 à 1899,” Communicaçöes da Direcçâo dos Serviços Geológicos de Portugal, 4 (1900–1901), x.

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  70. Letters from Tournotier to Ribeiro, Paris, 15 January 1879 and 21 January 1879, IGM Historical Archive, Bookcase 12, Shelf 3, Box 64.

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  71. Letter from Fontannes to Ribeiro, Lyon, 24 May 1879, IGM Historical Archive, Bookcase 12, Shelf 3, Box 64.

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  72. In a letter to Ribeiro, Fontannes makes reference to “(…) Mr. Choffat, qui a trouvé à Lisbonne des sujets d’étude aussi attrayants que les relations qu’il y cultive sont agréables (…)” and a letter sent by Heer to Choffat early the following year reads (French translation): “C’est avec grand plaisir que j’ai appris par votre lettre du 12 fevrier ct. que vous avez reçu un bon accueil à Lisbonne et que l’on vous y a soutenu dans vos recherches géologiques.” Letters from Fontannes to Ribeiro, Lyon, 5 August 1879; and from Heer to Choffat, Zurich, 23 February 1880, IGM Historical Archive, Bookcase 12, Shelf 3, Box 64.

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  73. Letters from: Librairie F. Savy to Choffat, Paris, 1 June 1879; J. B. Baillière et Fils to Choffat, Paris, 8 July 1879; R. Friedländer & Sohn, Buchhandlung to Choffat, Berlin, 24 November 1879; R. Friedländer & Sohn, Buchhandlungand to Ribeiro, Berlin, 4 November 1880, IGM Historical Archive, Bookcase 12, Shelf 3, Box 64.

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  74. Letter from Choffat to Ribeiro, Batalha, 8 October 1879, IGM Historical Archive, Bookcase 12 Shelf 3, Box 64.

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  75. Wire from Heer to Ribeiro, Zurich, 25 May 1880, IGM Historical Archive, Bookcase 12, Shelf 3, Box 64.

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  76. In its session of 7 June 1880. We have been unable to find any reference to Choffat’s talk in the session’s proceedings, Bulletin de la Société Géologique de France, [3], 8 (187980), 369–89. The work by Choffat was his Etude Stratigraphique et Paléontologique des Terrains Jurassiques du Portugal — Première Livraison - Le Lias et le Dogger au Nord du Tage (Lisboa: Académie Royale des Sciences, 1880).

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  77. Letter from Choffat to Ribeiro, Paris, 8 June 1880, IGM Historical Archive, Bookcase 12, Shelf 3, Box 64.

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  78. Frederich Welwitsch was born in Mariasaal, Carinthia, in 1806. He studied botany and published in 1834 “Observation on the Cryptogamic flora of the lower Austria”, winning a award given by the Vienna Municipium. In 1836, Welwitsch published a synopsis on the Nostochineae and had contact with E. Fenzl and other scientists from the Vienna Museum. Later on, he became an expert on African flora.

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  79. The circumstances surrounding Welwitsch’s departure from Vienna and his joining the Portuguese society are still to be clarified. His biographer, J. Almeida, in “Dr. Frederich Artur Welwitsch and his work in Angola,” Boletim Geral das Colonias, (1926), 13, has given a quite clear account of his life and work.

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  80. After the integration of the Natural History Museum in the Lisbon Polytechnic School, a decree of January 1862 renamed it the Lisbon National Museum.

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Carneiro, A., Areias, D., Leitão, V., Pinto, L.T. (2003). The Role of Travels in the Internationalisation of Nineteenth Century Portuguese Geological Science. In: Simões, A., Carneiro, A., Diogo, M.P. (eds) Travels of Learning. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 233. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3584-1_11

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