Underwater flowers

 

Flowering plants (angiosperms) began to dominate the Earth’s vegetation about 100 million years ago and, while other, more primitive, plants continue to be abundant, the present diversity of angiosperms is remarkable. When thinking of flowering plants, our minds may turn to beautiful garden borders, meadows and occasional clumps of flowers in woods and verges. Yet flowering plants have also invaded water bodies; although this is really a re-invasion as land plant evolved from distant aquatic ancestors.

Anyone visiting a stream draining from chalk strata is impressed by the amount of vegetation growing over its bed and invading from the margins. There are many microscopic algae that are only visible under a microscope, but two common flowering plants often dominate: water cress and water crowfoot. Of the two, water cress grows into the stream from the banks and can extend right across narrow channels, a habit that has been exploited in the development of commercial cress beds fed by water from chalk streams. The bulk of the plant remains above the water surface and this contrasts with water crowfoot, where plants grow in dense stands, rooted into the bed of the stream and affecting its flow pattern. Water crowfoot is a relative of the buttercup and its flowers are very similar in structure, although they are white, rather than yellow, in colour. It is only during flowering that we see water crowfoot above the water surface, although stands can become so dense that, at times of low flow in summer, they may be exposed to the air. They are well adapted to life in flowing water. The drag on the mass of leaves is counteracted by an effective rhizome and root system that ensures anchorage on the stream bed and the plants engineer the stream around them. Stands provide an obstruction to flow that creates channels of faster-moving water between plants and this serves not only to keep the substratum clear of sediment, but the growing leaves are also unaffected by deposition and can thus photosynthesise efficiently. In contrast, the base of the plant is an area of sediment build-up and this includes much organic matter [1] that serves as a source of nutrients - another way in which the plants engineer their habitat to their advantage.

Although water cress and water crowfoot are both aquatic plants, with the former fitting the definition less easily than the latter, seagrasses are truly aquatic. As their name suggests, these plants are marine, spending the whole of their life cycle under water. Seagrasses have a world-wide distribution and are perhaps most commonly associated with tropical seas and, especially, reefs, where the water is clear and there is good light penetration to the substratum, allowing efficient photosynthesis. Nutrients needed for growth taken up by roots and stored in rhizomes that also serve to stabilise soft sediments. Interestingly, seagrasses are more closely related to lilies and ginger than to grasses [2] and their colonisation of soft sediments results in large meadows when conditions for their growth are favourable. These are then grazed upon by many animals and they also form shelter for many others organisms and a substratum for yet more.

Seagrasses are also found commonly in shallow temperate seas that have sufficient transparency to allow the plants to grow. As I grew up by the sea in Torbay, and had a love of Natural History, I knew about seagrasses, but had no idea that there were meadows of the plants so close to some of my collecting spots. Neither did I know that seagrasses were flowering plants. Like many, I thought that seaweeds alone were the dominant marine plants around coasts.

Two of my favourite places to visit in Torbay were Elbury [Elberry] Cove and the rocks below Corbyn’s Head, where I spent time collecting marine creatures for aquarium tanks. [3] Both locations now have interesting and informative signs (see below) describing the importance and susceptibility to damage by boats etc. of the seagrass meadows just offshore. It is likely that Zostera is one of the seagrasses and Henry Gosse mentions this plant when describing the results of dredging a little further up the coast:

Now we have made our offing, and can look well into Teignmouth Harbour, the bluff point of the Ness some four miles distant, scarcely definable now against the land. We pull down sails, set her head for the Orestone Rock [just off Torbay], and drift with the tide. The dredge is hove overboard, paying out some forty fathoms of line, for we have about twelve or fourteen fathoms’ water here, with a nice rough, rubbly bottom, over which, as we hold the line in hand, we feel the iron lip of the dredge grate and rumble, without catches or jumps. Now and then, for a brief space, it goes smoothly, and the hand feels nothing; that is when a patch of sand is crossed, or a bed of zostera, or close-growing sea-weeds, each a good variation for yielding. [4]

As Gosse was a devout Creationist, the presence of flowering plants in soft sediments around marine coasts would be another example of the extraordinary events of the six days in which all living things - and all fossil ones - came into existence. [5] To those of us who cannot share such a view, the presence of flowering seagrasses underwater is another example of the extraordinary powers of evolution.

In terrestrial habitats the fertilisation of ova by pollen is aided by insects, wind or other agents and there have been extraordinary adaptations to ensure that fertilisation is achieved - by evolving nectar and/or scent to attract insects, by evolving elaborate colour patterns that are attractive, by producing pollen in enormous quantities, etc. - yet flowers are retained by seagrasses where neither insects or wind can be involved in pollination. Seagrass plants bear both male and female flowers and the pollen from male flowers is released into the water and thus wafts around the plants. The use of water for fertilisation is, of course, extremely common in many marine organisms, including seaweeds and many animals, and that makes underwater flowers seem less unlikely than on first consideration. Natural History is full of such discoveries and one is always learning something new. That’s the satisfaction of it - that, and the sense of wonder at just what can evolve over millions of years and millions of generations. 

[1] Cotton, J.A., Wharton, G., Bass, J.A.B., Heppell, C.M. and Wotton, R.S. (2006) Plant-water-sediment interactions in lowland permeable streams: investigating the effect of seasonal changes in vegetation cover on flow patterns and sediment accumulation. Geomorphology 77: 320-324.

[2] http://www.seagrasswatch.org/seagrass.html

[3] Roger S Wotton (2020) Walking With Gosse: Natural History, Creation and Religious Conflicts. e-book.

[4] Philip Henry Gosse (1865) A Year at the Shore. London, Alexander Strahan.

[5] Philip Henry Gosse (1857) Omphalos: an attempt to untie the geological knot. London, John Van Voorst.

 

When it rains conkers

In one of the most popular scenes in the BBC adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice [1], Mr Darcy (Colin Firth) dived into the lake at Pemberley and then encountered Elizabeth Bennet (Jennifer Ehle) while walking back to the house. His swim was an invention, although the meeting at Pemberley does take place in the book, as does the introduction to Mr and Mrs Gardiner (Tim Wylton and Joanna David). In that dialogue, there is further invention when Mr Darcy relates that he used to run from Pemberley into Lambton (more than four miles!) as a boy to collect horse chestnuts from the tree on the green. It did seem an odd thing to do, but maybe there were no suitable horse chestnut trees on the Pemberley estate, despite its many acres of “some of the finest woods in the country” [1]?

The dialogue brought fond memories of playing conkers to all of us who watched the programme: collecting the conkers; making a hole through the “best” ones with a meat skewer; and threading through a piece of strong and knotting its end. Then heading for the playground to try and demolish someone else’s conker by swiping at it with one’s own prized weapon, while avoiding, as much as possible, sore knuckles from an opponent’s misguided shot. During these contests there was much chat of how to prepare the best conkers (with vinegar and baking), although the ones we used were not treated.

I was reminded of those times earlier this week as I walked across Boxmoor in Hertfordshire, that has a splendid avenue of horse chestnut (Aeschylus hippocastanum) trees (see above). It had been raining and there was a moderate breeze, with the result that conkers were falling constantly and I was grateful that my bald head was covered by a cloth cap (although none of them fell on me). There were conkers all over the path and the freshly-fallen ones had that lovely lustre of polished veneers that soon dies on exposure to the air. Each conker is different in shape and patterning and they are beautiful: they provide yet another aspect of the “mellow fruitfulness” of autumn and one which brings, for me, a child-like appreciation of the natural world.

Christian believers might suggest that this is something that God intended at the time of the Creation, but atheists are more likely to point to the evolution of the horse chestnut, that began many millions of years ago, way before the creatures that led to H. sapiens first appeared. Conkers are, of course the means of dispersal of future generations of trees and we probably all remember planting some in pots and watching shoots appear at the surface of the soil.

Earlier this year, an interesting paper on the horse chestnut appeared in the Journal of Ecology [2]. It is a comprehensive account, well worth reading for those who love these trees, and it includes the following information:

Aeschylus hippocastanum is native to the Balkan Peninsula in south-east Europe but has been widely planted in temperate areas from the 17th Century onwards..

..Horse chestnut is best known as a tree planted for ornamentation and shade in parks and streets, particularly by the Victorians, since little else can rival the sight of a horse-chestnut in full flower. Indeed, it was voted the UK’s favourite tree in 2017 in a poll run by the Royal Society of Biology. The British population is an estimated 470,000 trees.

Like many other trees, horse chestnuts are attacked by insects and by disease organisms [2]. Those having the greatest aesthetic impact are larvae of a leaf-mining moth, Cameraria ohridella, that first appeared in the late 1970s in Macedonia. They feed on the tissue inside the leaf and produce unsightly brown blotches that have the effect of colouring the whole tree through the summer months and into autumn. While these attacks reduce the ability of the tree to photosynthesise, and thus produce energy, the trees still produce conkers (if smaller and in lower numbers than in unaffected areas). It would be so sad if future generations were prevented from enjoying the appearance of these wonderful fruits, then gathering them for a game of conkers. Or is that the sentiment of an old man, out of touch with the modern age?

[1] Jane Austen (1813) Pride and Prejudice. London, T.Egerton.

[2] Peter A. Thomas, Omar Alhamd, Grzegorz Iszkulo, Monika Dering and Tarek A. Mukassabi (2019) Biological Flora of the British Isles: Aeschylus hippocastanum. Journal of Ecology 107:992-1030.

Watching starfish move

All of us who enjoy looking in coastal rock pools are pleased when we find a starfish sheltering under a stone, or under fronds of algae. When we pick up our specimen, we see that the undersides of its arms bear many tube feet that are used both in locomotion and also as a means of obtaining food. Their use is explained in the following video clip [1]:

In the Nineteenth Century, our knowledge of starfish locomotion was dependent on written accounts, aided by illustrations, and no-one was better at describing the animals of the shore than Philip Henry Gosse. In Land and Sea, Gosse writes of a visit to Meadfoot Beach in Torquay to explore the rock pools there (see below), a collecting site within easy walking distance of his home [2].

Gosse found a large starfish in the Meadfoot rock pools and moved it to another pool that provided a better chance of detailed study, as the animal was too large to take back to his aquarium. His description in Land and Sea [2] of its locomotion provides an interesting comparison with the video recording above. In reading it, we can admire Henry Gosse’s ability as a writer and it is easy to see how he was such an important figure in the development of the “Marine Biology Craze” of the Victorian era:

I mark it gliding smoothly, and with a moderate rapidity, over the unevenness of the rocky bottom, and notice the mechanism by which its progression is effected, I see at once that I have before me one of the great types of animal locomotion; a series of contrivances, by which a given end, that of voluntary change of place, is accomplished, which are quite sui generis; admirable in their adaptation to the prescribed end, but totally unlike the arrangements by which the same object is attained in higher forms of life..

..Each of the five thick and bluntly-pointed arms, or rays, of this star-like animal is seen to be indented on its underside by a rather wide and deep furrow, which extends from the hollow in the centre, where the mouth is seated, throughout its length, to the point. Along the floor of this groove we should see in the dead and dried animal four rows of minute perforations, running lengthwise. We cannot discern them directly during the living activity of the starfish, because the crowding sucker-feet conceal them. Each of these suckers is a tube of delicate membrane, a continuation of the common skin; and its interior accurately corresponds with one of these perforations in the skeleton..

..If we were to dissect this animal, we should find, on the interior surface of the semi-crustaceous integument of the arm, a little globular bag of similar transparent membrane, on each aperture, which opens into the cavity of the globe, just as on the outer side it opens into the tube. Thus there is a free intercommunication between the globose sac on the inside and the sucker-tube on the outside, through the tiny perforation in the crust. The interior is filled with a clear fluid, scarcely differing in its nature from sea-water. The globular sac within and the tube without are both composed of highly contractile tissue, under the control of the animal will.

Gosse goes on to describe the stepping motion of the tube feet, but does not describe the complete water vascular system, its connection to the surrounding sea water via the madreporite (the porous plate shown in the video), or the nervous system by which the movement of the tube feet is controlled. Being a devout Christian, he does, however, state:

Here we have one of the multitudinous results of the infinite Wisdom and almighty Power combined in creation. The problem is to endow with the faculty of voluntary locomotion a sentient creature which has no internal skeleton, and no limbs. It is solved in many ways in the invertebrate classes, and this is one example.

While writing this, Gosse was aware that there was a growing acceptance of the theory of evolution (Darwin having published On the Origin of Species in 1859), something which he vehemently opposed, as he believed in a literal interpretation of the story of Creation in the Book of Genesis. He looked upon the wonderful complexities of the natural world as the work of an all-powerful God.

I, too, am filled with amazement when looking at specimens of the same animals and plants that Gosse observed and this always presents a challenge. Coming back to the example of locomotion in starfish, I find myself trying to answer questions on how the water vascular system evolved – what were the various stages required and did they occur near-simultaneously, or gradually? Isn't the sense of wonder posed by such questions very similar to that Gosse felt about God's Creation?

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2G7L5hcEt8

[2] Philip Henry Gosse (1865) Land and Sea. London, James Nisbet & Co..

Bee orchids, Darwin and Creation

I have often thought that it is easier to believe in the creation of organisms than in their evolution. All that is required is a belief in a Creator, but if one does not have that, one is left to pondering the many steps that must have occurred to produce the extraordinary adaptations of, and associations between, living organisms that we see around us. We cannot comprehend the time scales over which these changes have taken place, so all we are left with are our speculations.

In the past few weeks, I have been taking a WEA course on the influence of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species on 19th Century thought. It is led by Paul Ranford, the excellent historian of science, who introduced us to other works by Darwin, including his book The various contrivances by which orchids are fertilised by insects, orchids becoming a consuming passion of the great man while he recovered from the effort of producing the “Origin”. It set me to reading what Darwin had to say about the bee orchid (Ophrys apifera – see below, with an illustration from Darwin’s book). 

These are some extracts from Darwin's book [1]:

The Bee Ophrys differs widely from the great majority of Orchids in being excellently constructed for fertilising itself..

..When a pollen-mass is placed on the stigma and then withdrawn, the elastic threads by which the packets are tied together break, and leave several packets on the viscid surface. In all other Orchids the meaning of these several contrivances is unmistakeably clear – namely, the downward movement of the lip of the rostellum when gently pushed – the viscidity of the disc – the depression of the caudicle as soon as the disc is exposed to the air – the rupturing of the elastic threads – and the conspicuousness of the flower. Are we to believe that these adaptations for cross-fertilisation in the Bee Ophrys are absolutely purposeless, as would certainly be the case if this species has always been and will always be self-fertilised? It is, however, just possible that insects, although they may have never been seen to visit the flowers, may at rare intervals transport the pollinia from plant to plant..

..The whole case is perplexing in an unparalleled degree, for we have in the same flower elaborate contrivances for directly opposed objects..

..As it can hardly be doubted that O. apifera was at first constructed so as to be regularly cross-fertilised, it may be asked will it ever revert to its former state: and if it does not so revert, will it become extinct?

The question is a valid one and Darwin involved his correspondents in finding out more about the fertilisation of bee orchids. One of his regular correspondents was Philip Henry Gosse, the avid creationist, who was busy in 1863 “examining bee orchis for Darwin at Petit Tor” [2].

The bee orchis (orchid) gets its common name from its appearance, said to resemble a solitary bee and we know that male bees are essential for the fertilisation of some orchids. We do not know whether the flower looks like a bee to bees but we do know that the floral pigments give signatures under untraviolet light that may act as attractants. Since Darwin’s time, we recognise that another important mechanism is involved in attracting pollinators and this is of much greater significance than the appearance of the flowers, that so fascinates humans. Orchids in the genus Ophrys secrete chemicals that mimic sex pheromones produced by female bees and these vary from species to species, thus attracting specific pollinators, although accidental fertilisation by a range of insects may also be a possibility. Ophrys apifera is fertilised by a solitary bee in Mediterranean regions but, as Darwin discovered, self-fertilisation occurs in the northern part of its range.

There is a lively contemporary debate on the significance of the various factors involved in the fertilisation of Ophrys [3,4,5] and, fittingly, this exchange of views took place in a journal of the Linnean Society, the society that was instrumental in introducing Darwin’s ideas on evolution. The three papers (and there are many others on the topic) show clearly just how complex the evolution of the orchids has been. Mention must also be made of why male bees are often the agents of fertilisation of the orchids, by transferring pollen from one flower to another. The females of solitary bees mate soon after emergence from the pupa [6] and it is probable that there is a surplus of males or, if mating is a once only event, there are males constantly looking for mates and, by deception, being attracted to orchids.

The whole arrangement is a remarkable example of co-evolution and one wonders about the timing of the steps involved in the association and whether they were gradual or rapid (over geological time). What came first? Was it the mating biology of bees, the selection of colour patterns in Ophrys flowers that became attractive to insects, the production of a series of chemicals that act as attractants, differences across the range of the plants, or what?

[1] Charles Darwin (1862) The various contrivances by which orchids are fertilised by insects. London, John Murray.

[2] Edmund Gosse (1896) The naturalist of the sea-shore: the life of Philip Henry Gosse. London, William Heinemann.

[3] E.Bradshaw, P.J.Rudall, D.S.Devey, M.M.Thomas, B.J.Glover and R.M.Bateman (2010) Comparative labellum micromorphology of the asexually deceptive temperate orchid genus Ophrys: diverse epidermal cell types and multiple origins of structural colour. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 162: 504-540.

[4] N.J.Vereecken, M.Streinzer, M.Assaye, J.Spaethe, H.F.Paulus, J. Stöckl, P.Cortis and F.P Schiestl (2011) Integrating past and present studies on Ophrys pollination – a comment on Bradshaw et al. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 165: 329-335.

[5] R.M Bateman, E. Bradshaw, D.S.Devey, B.J.Glover, S. Malmgren, G.Sramkó, M.M.Thomas and P.J.Rudall (2011) Species arguments: clarifying competing concepts of species delimitation in the pseudo-copulatory orchid genus Ophrys. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 165: 336-347.

[6] https://www.bumblebeeconservation.org/lifecycle/

I would like to thank Paul Ranford and my WEA classmates for their stimulating discussions. It is great to leave a course with many more questions than answers – after all, that’s the fundamental nature of science.

The isolation of a Creationist

The Creationist W Welch believed that many planets throughout the Universe are colonised by intelligent beings and that they lived on cool parts of our sun [1]. Philip Henry Gosse, also a Creationist, thought differently [2]:

I venture to suggest that not only the Planets and Satellites of this system, but the Sun itself,- nay, the millions of Suns, that, to our eyes are but specks in space,- (yet each one, perhaps, with its system of planets and satellites) are none of them habitable as yet, but are being prepared by God for habitation; each in succession to be got ready for Colonization from Earth by Adam’s race. That God is, we may say, furnishing his great House of many mansions, of which one small apartment alone is occupied.

If I be asked how living, breathing human bodies can possibly be transferred from world to world, I reply, I have no conception, how. But if man himself has invented means of travelling across oceans; of floating in the air; of living for hours under water; of conversing audibly across hundreds of miles; of conveying written messages thousands of miles in a minute,- I am quite sure the Omnipotent God will find no difficulty in conveying men through stellar space, when He pleases.

Certainly a contrast in views, with one writer letting his imagination run wild and the other taking a much more measured approach, believing colonisation would be from the Earth, the site of God’s initial Creation.

In addition to their consideration of the colonisation of planets, Welch and Gosse both published theories about the origin of the Earth: Welch in his book Religiosa Philosophia [3] and Gosse in Omphalos: an attempt to untie the geological knot [4]. Both men felt that their theories did not contradict the account in Genesis in the Bible, that they held to be sacrosanct. 

Welch suggested that some part of the water from the firmament formed a large globular mass from which particles condensed and then sedimented to form a solid core [3]. Over thirty years later, Gosse also tackled the conflict between the then contemporary knowledge of geology and the Biblical account of Creation with his theory of prochronism: the act of Creation included rock strata, and their associated fossils, that thus bore evidence of “life before time”.

Little is known about Welch, but Henry Gosse was a very well-known figure in the world of Natural History and I have a great admiration for his descriptive and observational powers, his industry and his skills as an illustrator. Until recently, I have steered away from his religious books, as I feel little empathy with his rigid beliefs.

Given the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species two years after Omphalos, and the extraordinary effect that Darwin’s book had, it is remarkable that Gosse held so firmly to his theory. This is what he wrote in The Mysteries of God about scientific thought in the Nineteenth Century:

The vast accession made to the knowledge of natural things, during the past century, by the observations of innumerable students, and by the conclusions deduced therefrom, has been, by the Arch Enemy, turned into a most potent weapon against the faith, used with marvellous skill for insidiously discrediting, first, and then arrogantly denying, the teachings of Holy Scripture.

It is startling to mark how fatally successful have been his tactics. A very large number of professed Christians,- perhaps even the majority of such as are competent to think about the matter,- are, more or less, tainted with the prevalent unbelief; conscious of, at least, a lurking suspicion that some of the Bible statements are not absolutely trustworthy; but must be, if not rejected, explained away, in some non-natural exegesis. Even in those who read Papers, or deliver Lectures, professedly to defend Revelation against sceptical Science, this unworthy trimming is sometimes painfully manifest.. .. Various subterfuges and shifts are used to evade the verbal accuracy of the Sacred Word; needless concessions here, and admissions there, allow the truth of God to pass by default. One makes a distinction between the veracity of different parts, ignoring, or denying its integral unity. There is often an underlying assumption that, at whatever cost, the teachings of the Bible must be subject to the accepted conclusions of Science: and, in general, the tone of the Lecturer is one of frowning severity toward the simple believer, and of tolerant sympathy toward the scientific infidel.

I sympathise with Gosse’s position on deciding what is, and what is not, factual in accounts in the Bible and it is something that must be difficult for many contemporary Christians. Not for Gosse though. He was unbending in his belief in the literal truth of the Bible and preached this to the small group of fellow believers he led in St Marychurch in Torquay. The Mysteries of God is based on his sermons, but it was not well received, even by fellow members of the Brethren and it had few reviews [5]. In the book, Gosse again propounds the theory of prochronism, stating that it had not been refuted in the 27 years since the publication of Omphalos. Unfortunately, this was probably because no-one bothered much about Gosse’s ideas, especially as he rarely ventured far in the later part of his life (he died in 1888). He spent much time at “Sandhurst”, his home in St Marychurch (see below – picture from [6]), save for many visits to the shore, the local countryside, and to the Brethren chapel he founded.

Another characteristic shared by Gosse and some contemporary Christian Creationists, is their ability to see Satan (the “Arch Enemy”) everywhere – as is so clear in the passage quoted above. Henry’s son, Edmund, found this, and the religious fervour that drove it, unbearable, as we know from his well-known book Father and Son. In it, Edmund wrote [7]:

He who was so tender-hearted that he could not bear to witness the pain and distress of any person, however disagreeable or undeserving, was quite acquiescent in believing that God would punish human beings, in millions, for ever, for a purely intellectual error of comprehension. My Father’s inconsistencies of perception seem to me to have been the result of a curious irregularity of equipment. Taking for granted, as he did, the absolute integrity of the Scriptures, and applying to them his trained scientific spirit, he contrived to stifle, with a deplorable success, alike the function of the imagination, the sense of moral justice, and his own deep and instinctive tenderness of heart.

Isn’t that sad?

[1] http://rwotton.blogspot.com/2018/05/a-new-theory-of-earth-in-unison-with.html

[2] Philip Henry Gosse (1884) The Mysteries of God: A series of expositions of Holy Scripture. London, Hodder and Stoughton.

[3] W Welch (1821) Religiosa Philosophia. Plymouth, W. Byers.

[4] Philip Henry Gosse (1857) Omphalos: an attempt to untie the geological knot. London, John Van Voorst.

[5] Ann Thwaite (2002) Glimpses of the Wonderful: The Life of Philip Henry Gosse 1810-1888. London, Faber and Faber.

[6] R.B.Freeman and Douglas Wertheimer (1980) Philip Henry Gosse: A Bibliography. Folkestone, Wm Dawson & Sons.

[7] Edmund Gosse (1907) Father and Son: A study of two temperaments. London, William Heinemann.

A new theory of the Earth; in unison with the Mosaic account of Creation

The rapid development of geology in the first part of the Nineteenth Century brought challenges to those who believed in the literal truth of The Holy Bible. Lyell’s Principles of Geology, published in three volumes from 1830-1833 [1] synthesised contemporary views on the accumulation of different strata over very long time periods, with the strata containing the fossilised remains of plants and animals. Clearly, the Earth was more than 6000 years old, as maintained by Christian Creationists, and believers were thus faced with a conflict that they needed to resolve.

In 1821, ten years before Lyell’s synthesis, W Welch of Plymouth produced his Reliogiosa Philosophia [2] and I am grateful to Dr Patrick Armitage of the Freshwater Biological Association for suggesting that I would be interested in Welch’s work. I had no knowledge of it before Patrick contacted me, although a copy is available as an e-book. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find out anything about Welch except that he lived in Stonehouse in Plymouth and believed in the truth of everything written in The Holy Bible.

Reliogiosa Philosophia, subtitled A new theory of the Earth; in unison with the Mosaic account of Creation (thus the title of this blog post), opens with its dedication to Sir Humphry Davy, the President of The Royal Society (PRS):

Presuming on your well known regard for, and patronage of, the Arts and Sciences, I have taken the liberty to dedicate to you this first production of my pen, on a subject which has long engaged the attention of Geologists.

Should the present work meet your approval, it will afford me gratification, from a conviction that you would not bestow your approbation, unless you conceived the conclusions I have drawn to be founded on truth; and if my attempt to reconcile recorded facts in the book of Nature with the history of Creation, as given by Moses, in the Sacred Volume, prove successful, true religion and philosophy will be benefited; and as they are derived from the same source, they should be united to promote the same end.

I do not know how Davy responded to the book but, although Welch’s thoughts on the formation of the Earth are imaginative, they are also eccentric and it is unlikely that the PRS took them seriously.

Welch’s theory is this:

..by the power and word of the Almighty, by the agency of fire, a union of the gases was effected, and which, in a state of Nebula, uniting, formed a globe of water, of much larger dimensions than the present earth, with its seas, now only encompassing our shores. These gases contained and combined all the principles of future matter.. ..a globe of water thus formed, became the emporium, or grand magazine; a union of stony particles probably then took place, which, when they became specifically heavier than the water, descended from every part towards the centre, and formed a nucleus, whilst the stony particles, in their descent, obtained from the diurnal motion, the form of a spheroid..

..The nucleus being of a nature suited to marine vegetation, plants were, by the creative power of the Deity, first produced, suited to the wants of testaceous and crustaceous animals. From these sources, I presume, the earth received its gradual increase:- that, in proportion as vegetables and animals have been produced, the layers or strata have been formed, and the waters lessened; and that, in the process of time, the earth approached towards the surface of the waters, when the long confined volcanic matter acquired a force superior to the resisting external pressure, burst the hitherto unbroken globe, raised the Continents with the Mountains, producing various phenomena..

 

Welch’s ideas on the formation of the Earth are summarised by an illustration in his book (see above). In propounding these views, he provides an explanation, albeit an extremely unlikely one, for the origin of the huge volume of water in the oceans covering so much of the Earth's surface: contemporary theories proposing that this water comes from comets, or from the release of water from crystalline rocks. Like Welch, we don’t know.

The development of rock strata described by Welch must have taken a lot longer than the few days demanded by the account in Genesis. He addresses this point [2]:

It may.. ..be asserted by some persons, that the Almighty could as easily have constructed our Globe at once, and that the means here laid down are inadequate to the end. To the former I reply, that it would be a species of blasphemy to doubt his power; but that the point is, not what he could do, but what the book of Nature shews he has done; and to the latter position, it will appear obvious.. .. that the production of marine animals is incalculable, and that the myriads of millions in a globe of water, and which the Creator abundantly filled, to produce and execute his designs, by the shells cemented with decomposed plants making layers, and constantly forming into rock, tending in every part to raise the bed of the Ocean.

This is confusing, as Welch is a believer in Creation, yet appears to accept the idea of change over long periods of time – not of evolution, but of the formation of rock strata with their associated fossils. It certainly requires a lot of faith to accept the description given in Genesis.

Much of the rest of the book elaborates on Welch’s theory, but he also gives us an Appendix that shows us the power of his imagination [2]:

..we may safely infer, that the Deity would not have provided the planets Jupiter, Saturn, and the Herschel, or Georgium Sidus, with moons, (of no sort of utility to us,) unless he had intended to have placed beings on those globes, possessed with the faculty of vision, and capable of receiving and enjoying light, in a manner similar to ourselves; and it is more than probable, nay, it amounts almost to a demonstration, that not only the planets in our system are inhabited, but those in every other throughout the universe..

What is the basis for these assumptions? Is there any statement in The Holy Bible to support this extraordinary view? Did each of these myriads of planets, which had the same Creator, also have the same Jesus Christ?

Welch’s views on planets are fantastic, but nothing compared to what he has to say about the sun:

The Sun, which is evidently the most glorious orb in our system, has been very generally supposed to be a globe of fire; I shall, however, on this subject offer a few observations, and conclude the present essay by endeavouring to illustrate that not only the planets, but that our sun also, is probably the abode of intelligent and more exalted beings..

..it may.. ..be reasonably inferred, that the source of our day is surrounded with a luminous atmosphere, suited by the Creator to his all-wise and beneficent purposes; and, that owing to a break or opening, which at times occur, we are enabled to perceive a part of his orb, and which, contrasted with the brilliancy of his luminous part, appears black, demonstrating that it is not a body of fire; it is, therefore, more than probable, that the sun is a suited habitation to superior and exalted beings.

I had never considered “sun spots” in this way and I wonder what Davy, and other readers grounded in science, made of Welch’s extraordinary theories. How did he develop them? Did they stem from a threat to his religious beliefs? I cannot answer these questions. However, it is worth pointing out that currently accepted theories on the origin of the Universe may seem equally preposterous in two hundred years’ time and we may have to accept that we will never explain what we observe. That acceptance provides a niche that religions exploit, yet it can be argued that religious explanations may be as valid as “scientific” ones when dealing with the unknown. Welch, however, seems just a tad wild in his metaphysical imaginings…

[1] Charles Lyell (1830 – 1833) Principles of Geology (three volumes). London, John Murray.

[2] W Welch (1821) Religiosa Philosophia. Plymouth, W. Byers.

Many thanks to Patrick Armitage for suggesting that I would be fascinated by Welch’s book – I certainly was, but probably not in the way that Welch intended.

Anne Pratt – a woman of the seashore

In her book Kindred Nature, Barbara Gates discusses the part that women played in the Victorian passion for Natural History. Seashore plants and animals were found especially fascinating, as marine coasts were previously under-explored, and among the women who wrote guides was Anne Pratt. She is now almost forgotten, yet Barbara Gates writes [1]:

When George Eliot and George Henry Lewes arrived in Ilfracombe in 1856, awkward and ill-equipped novices in seashore life but ready to learn enough for Lewes to be able to write Sea-side Studies in 1858, they would have been as likely to be carrying Anne Pratt's Chapters on the Common things of the Sea-side (1850) as they would Philip Gosse's Aquarium (1854) or Kingsley's Glaucus.

Having posted previously on Lewes, Gosse and Kingsley [2], I wanted to explore Anne Pratt's book and imagine the impression that it made on its readers.

As might be expected in a book written by a specialist on land plants, Chapters on the Common things of the Sea-side [3] begins with seaside plants and seaweeds, going on to describe animals of various types; the text being accompanied by Anne Pratt’s own illustrations (see below for an example). She enthuses about what we might find and encourages close observation, including, where necessary, taking specimens to small tanks of sea-water to get a better view of their form and function. A good example of the style and approach of her book can be found in her descriptions of zoophytes (i.e. animals that resemble plants):

Perhaps the zoophytes best known as such to visitors at the coast, are the beautiful Sea Anemones, which offer their loveliness to every eye, and need no microscope to reveal their tints or forms. Clustered by thousands on sea-side rocks or sands, adorning the sides of rocky pools, with flowers which resemble marigolds or China-asters in their form, but which are brighter in their colours than any flowers which our garden can show; redder than roses, of richer purple than the violet, and wearing the rainbow hues of the gorgeous cactus flower, which the painter in vain essays to copy, there are few objects in nature more calculated to attract our notice that are these living flowers..

..To look down upon these flowers, one would deem them the most helpless of living creatures. The water, with its myriads of tiny insects, seems to afford their proper nutriment, and none would guess, to glance at them, that they could possibly kill, and swallow crabs and shell-fish larger than themselves. But the great Creator, when he made them, furnished them all, helpless as they seem, with the means of securing their appropriate nutriment. They possess a poisonous secretion which soon extinguishes life in the animal which comes near them..

Reading these passages today, we recoil at some of the descriptions (of “flowers” and “insects”, for example, although we know what she meant) and many would dislike the creationist stance that was not surprising in a book published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. However, her readers in the mid-Nineteenth Century would certainly have been encouraged to visit the shore and find some of the plants and animals that she describes. Indeed, her work in Natural History was recognised by the award of a grant from the Civil List, a reflection of her popularity with the public.

In the Introduction of their excellent bibliography of Philip Henry Gosse, Freeman and Wertheimer (1980) put Pratt’s book into the context of the developing science of Marine Biology that made such advances in the Nineteenth Century. They place Gosse’s work in comparison to what has gone before [4]:

His seashore studies.. ..marked an advance over previous books. Many of these, such as Mary Roberts’ Sea-side companion (1835), Elizabeth Allom’s Sea-side pleasures (1845), Anne Pratt’s Chapters on the Common things of the Sea-side (1850), and more importantly W. H. Harvey’s Sea-side book (1849), were successful enough, but as works of art, literature and science, bore feeble comparison to Gosse’s volumes.. ..Gosse’s lively and enthusiastic style was firmly based upon something which very few of the previous authors had attempted – original scientific investigation – and this makes them valuable for the present-day naturalist.

No wonder that Charles Kingsley was so impressed that he produced Glaucus as a paean of praise for Gosse and his early books. Gosse wrote for both the popular and the scientific audience and was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in recognition of his discoveries.

Does that mean we should dismiss Anne Pratt’s book about the shore in the way that Freeman and Wertheimer have done? Decidedly not, for she, together with the other women authors they mention, encouraged many who may otherwise not have become inspired by the study of the shore and among their numbers must have been many women, to whom Pratt, Roberts and Allom showed the way.

I would like to end with two further quotes about Anne Pratt, the first from the doverhistorian website and the second from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:

..although she brought the interest of botany to the masses, she never received academic acclaim – she was self-taught and a woman. Indeed, fifty years after her death her work was trivialised by the art historian Wilfred Blunt. [5]

Anne Pratt’s works were written in popular style but were said to be accurate. [6]

Being self-taught was viewed as a handicap in some circles and may explain the patronising comment about accuracy in the second quote above. Perhaps of greater significance was that Anne Pratt was a woman and a populariser, rather than a member of the developing scientific establishment that was completely dominated by men. Does that explain the condescension towards her?

[1] Barbara T Gates (1998) Kindred Nature: Victorian and Edwardian Women Embrace the Living World. Chicago, Chicago University Press.

[2] http://www.rwotton.blogspot.co.uk [several posts].

[3] Anne Pratt (1850) Chapters on the Common things of the Sea-side. London, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

[4] R. B. Freeman and Douglas Wertheimer (1980) Philip Henry Gosse: A Bibliography. Folkestone, Dawson.

[5] https://doverhistorian.com/2013/05/02/anne-pratt-botanical-illustrator-2/
 

[6] B. B. Woodward (2004-16) Pratt, Anne (1806-1893), rev. Giles Hudson. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.