Hutton inherited from his father the Berwickshire farms of Slighhouses, a lowland farm which had been in the family since 1713, and the hill farm of Nether Monynut. Hutton owned and rented out properties in Edinburgh, employing a factor to manage this business. Their work on production of sal ammoniac from soot led to their partnership in a profitable chemical works, : 2 manufacturing the crystalline salt which was used for dyeing, metalworking and as smelling salts and had been available only from natural sources and had to be imported from Egypt. : 2Īfter his degree Hutton went to London, then in mid-1750 returned to Edinburgh and resumed chemical experiments with close friend, James Davie. It is believed that James Hutton returned to Britain shortly after his promotion. The thesis was printed by Wilhelmus Boot, book printer in Leiden. On 12 September 1749, James Hutton obtained his doctorate in medicine from Leiden University with a physico-medical thesis entitled Sanguine et Circulatione Microcosmi. The Latin manuscript of Hutton's dissertation also contained 92 theses, two of which were successfully defended in public by James Hutton on 3 September 1749. His supervisor was Professor Frederik Winter, who was not only a professor at Leiden University, but also court physician to the Stadholder. He stayed with the widow Van der Tas (née Judith Bouvat) at the Langebrug, which corresponds to the current address Langebrug 101 in Leiden. At the age of 18, he became a physician's assistant, and attended lectures in medicine at the University of Edinburgh.Īfter a two-year stay in Paris, James Hutton arrived in Leiden in 1749, where he enrolled at the University of Leiden on 14 August 1749, at the home of the then rector magnificus Joachim Schwartz to obtain a doctorate in medicine. He was apprenticed to the lawyer George Chalmers WS when he was 17, but took more interest in chemical experiments than legal work. He was educated at the High School of Edinburgh where he was particularly interested in mathematics and chemistry, then when he was 14 he attended the University of Edinburgh as a "student of humanity", studying the classics. Hutton's father died in 1729, when he was three. 1726, as one of five children of Sarah Balfour and William Hutton, a merchant who was Edinburgh City Treasurer. Hutton was born in Edinburgh on 3 June O.S. Some reflections similar to those of Hutton can be found in publications of his contemporaries, such as the French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon, but it is chiefly Hutton's pioneering work that established the field. Hutton also put forward a thesis for a 'system of the habitable Earth' proposed as a deistic mechanism designed to keep the world eternally suitable for humans, an early attempt to formulate what today might be called one kind of anthropic principle. He was one of the earliest proponents of what in the 1830s became known as uniformitarianism, the science which explains features of the Earth's crust as the outcome of continuing natural processes over the long geologic time scale. From this he argued, in agreement with many other early geologists, that the Earth could not be young. Through his study of features in the landscape and coastlines of his native Scottish lowlands, such as Salisbury Crags or Siccar Point, he developed the theory that geological features could not be static but underwent continuing transformation over indefinitely long periods of time. Hutton advanced the idea that the physical world's remote history can be inferred from evidence in present-day rocks. Often referred to as the "Father of Modern Geology," he played a key role in establishing geology as a modern science. 1726 – 26 March 1797) was a Scottish geologist, agriculturalist, chemical manufacturer, naturalist and physician. James Hutton FRSE ( / ˈ h ʌ t ən/ 3 June O.S. Statue of James Hutton, Scottish National Portrait Gallery.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |