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Charles Giles Bridle Daubeny, M.D., F.R.S. [Obituary]
Trans. Devon Assoc., vol. II, Part II, (1868), pp.303-308.
by
Rev. W. Harpley, M.A., F.C.P.S.
Prepared by Michael Steer
The Obituary was read at its July 1868 Honiton meeting. The deceased was a celebrated chemist, botanist and geologist. Throughout his scientific career volcanic phenomena occupied his attention. He strove by frequent journeys through Italy, Sicily, France and Germany, Hungary and Transylvania, to extend his knowledge of that subject. In 1825, Dr Daubeny had prepared the foundation for his great work on volcanoes. This appeared in 1826, and contained descriptions of all regions known to experience igneous eruptions, as well as a consistent hypothesis of their cause. A more succinct biography, together with a lengthy list of his major publications and his portrait is available in Wikipedia. The Obituary, from a copy of a rare and much sought-after journal can be downloaded from the Internet Archive. Google has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. These books, on which copyright has expired, are available for free educational and research use, both as individual books and as full collections to aid researchers.
By the death of Dr. Daubeny, the Devonshire Association for the advancement of Science, Literature, and Art has been deprived of one who, although he could not be called one of its founders, was yet early enrolled among its members, and of whom it may be said that no one has evinced more zeal for its welfare, or has more essentially contributed to its success. During the whole period of his connection with it he was constant in his attendance at the annual meetings; in no instance did the Council in their deliberations fail to be assisted by the sound advice which his matured intellect enabled him to give; and almost up to the hour of his death he was labouring in its behalf, whilst engaged in revising and putting through the press the paper which he had read before the Association a few months previously at Barnstaple.
Charles Giles Bridle Daubeny was a younger son of the Rev. James Daubeny, rector of Stratton, in Gloucestershire, and was born in 1795. At the age of thirteen he entered Winchester School, whence, after a residence of nearly three years, he proceeded to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was elected to a demyship in 1810. In 1814 he took his B.A. degree, having obtained the honourable distinction of being in the second class in classics, according to the old style of the Oxford examinations. In 1815 he was again successful in winning academical distinction by gaining the chancellor's prize for the Latin essay, entitled "In illȃ Philosophiæ parte, quae moralis dicitur, tractanda, quaenam sit præcipue Aristotelicae disciplinae Virtus." In due course he obtained a lay fellowship at Magdalen, and applied himself to the study of medicine, and for several years practised his profession.
Although he afterwards relinquished his medical practice, the progress of medical science was during all his life much at his heart and he fully justified his title of MD. and his fellowship with the College of Physicians.
Whilst at Edinburgh preparing for his professional career, the lectures of Professor Jameson, of that university, on geology and mineralogy, attracted his earnest attention, and strengthened that desire to cultivate natural science which the teaching of Dr. Kidd at Oxford had already aroused in him. The change from thoughtful Oxford to active Edinburgh was the crisis in his career. Into the discussion then raging between the Plutonists and Neptunists, the worshippers of fire and water, he entered with all the keenness and the ardour of his keen and active mind. After quitting the university of Edinburgh, in 1819, he proceeded on a tour through France, everywhere collecting evidence on the geological and chemical history of the globe, sending from Auvergne some of the earliest notices which had appeared of that remarkable volcanic region. During the whole of his career volcanic phenomena occupied the attention of Dr. Daubeny, and he strove by frequent journeys through the various provinces of Europe to extend his knowledge of this interesting subject He thus prepared the basis of his great work on "Active and Extinct Volcanos," which appeared in 1826, and contains a careful description of all the regions known to be visited by igneous eruptions, and a consistent hypothesis of the cause of the thermic disturbance. A second edition of this work appeared in 1848, some years after his North American tour, and since then several supplements. In 1822, four years before the first publication of the "Description of Volcanos," he was elected to the professorship of chemistry in succession to Dr. Kidd, his former teacher. Henceforth the study of the physical sciences, and particularly chemistry and botany, began to absorb his whole attention ; and in 1829 he relinquished the practice of his profession, and devoted himself to them. Nothing could exceed the zealous activity with which he entered on all investigations which had a bearing on tlie principal subject of his thoughts. As illustrative of this, one instance only need be mentioned. While conducting his volcanic explorations, his attention was attracted to mineral waters, as indications of the processes going on below the surfaces of various countries. In order to examine these waters in the freshest state in which they could be obtained, he carried about a considerable apparatus, and would busy himself for days in evaporating and analysing on a large scale, just as if he were working in his laboratory at home. By such busy scrutiny of waters in the volcanic country of central France and the south of Italy he provoked the suspicious credulity of the natives, who thought he was poisoning their springs, and endangered his personal safety.
In 1834 he was elected to the Professorship of Botany. He was also made Curator of the Botanical Gardens at Oxford. Under his careful management these gardens were entirely arranged, considerably enlarged, enriched with extensive houses, and rendered capable of bearing not unfavourable comparison with the richest gardens in Europe. He also obtained possession of a piece of land in close proximity to Oxford, to enable him more easily to prosecute his researches in experimental botany. In the pleasant residence at the botanic garden Dr. Daubeny passed the remainder of his life. Here with never-wearying never-flagging diligence he instituted many experiments on vegetation under different conditions of soil; on the effects of light on plants, and of plants on light; on the conservability of seeds; on the ozonic elements of the atmosphere; and the effects of varied pro-portions of carbonic acid on plants analogous to those of the coal measures. A full description of many of these experiments, and the conclusions he deduced from them, may be found in his "Miscellaneous Memoirs and Essays," and the reports of the British Association. Not to make any descriptive remarks on them here, it may be briefly stated that the last mentioned are peculiarly valuable as elucidating the curious question, whether the amazing amount of vegetable life in the carboniferous ages of the world may not have been specially favoured by the presence in the palaeozoic atmosphere of a larger proportion of carbonic acid gas than is at present found.
Dr. Daubeny did not confine his attention exclusively to researches in experimental botany, and to the difficult questions before mentioned, but, as a part of his duty as professor of botany, he took pleasure in drawing attention to the historical aspects of the subject. With this view appeared his "Lectures on Roman Husbandry," which contain a full account of the most important passages of Latin authors bearing on crops and their culture, on the treatment of domestic animals and horticulture. A few years later followed a valuable essay on the "Trees and Shrubs of the Ancients," and a catalogue of trees and shrubs indigenous to Italy.
Dr. Daubeny was a great traveller, almost an annual visitor to the Continent; and in those visits he gained the friendship of many of the most eminent chemists and botanists of the day. At Geneva he was always welcomed by the celebrated botanist Decondelle, to whose memory he has devoted a careful critical essay, published in the second volume of his “Miscellanies." It is not improbable that the influence and guidance of that great man contributed much to the formation of those just views and clear conceptions of botanical science which were such characteristic features in the mind of him who is the subject of this brief notice.
Of late years, symptoms of ill-health sometimes interfering with his proper avocations, Dr. Daubeny found It desirable during the winters to exchange his residence in Oxford for the milder climate of Torquay. Here he was ready at all times to respond to the call made upon him, to impart by public lectures or otherwise some of that rare store of information possessed by him; and he manifested his un-interrupted activity of mind by his constant observations on the temperature and other atmospheric conditions of that salubrious resort, and by experiments in ozone and the usual meteorological elements in comparison with another series in Oxford. It was during the first of these winter visits that he joined the Devonshire Association, and in the following year he was elected to fill the presidential chair. At Tiverton, where the Association met that year (1865), he delivered his inaugural address - an address to which for soundness and depth of thought, extent of research, and perspicuity of expression, it would be difficulty to find a parallel in the published transactions of any learned society in the kingdom. His interest in the well-being of the Association did not end with the termination of his year of office, but at every subsequent meeting he was present, and contributed greatly to their success by the papers he read, and the share he took in the discussions.
At Tavistock, in 1866, he read a highly interesting paper "On the Dependence of the amount of Ozone on the Direction of the Wind," wherein, having established the fact that the average amount of ozone present in the air is greatest when the wind comes from the S.W., he endeavoured to deduce the conclusion that this circumstance tends to explain the great salubrity of the sea coasts in the S.W., S. and W., inasmuch as the S.W. wind is the most prevalent wind in such situations. It is to be regretted that he chose to have printed in the Transactions of the Association merely a brief abstract of the paper alluded to.
Last year, at Barnstaple, the proceedings were enhanced in interest by a most valuable paper which he contributed "On the Temperature of the Ancient World." This paper, published in extenso in the Transactions of the Association, and illustrated by some carefully- executed diagrams, must ever be regarded by the members with peculiar interest, as being the last published production of the fertile brain of Charles Daubeny.
Besides his connection with the Devonshire Association, he took an active part in the proceedings of several congresses held for the promotion of physical science. He had during his career been an unchanging friend and supporter of the British Association; and in 1856, on the occasion of its visiting Cheltenham he became president, amidst numerous friends, who caused a medal to be struck in his honour, the only instance of the kind in the history of the Association.
His latest labour was to gather his "Miscellaneous Essays" into two very interesting volumes, and then, after patiently enduring severe illness for a few weeks, he sank to that rest which often in his thoughts had ever been expected with the calmness of the philosopher, and the hopefulness of the Christian. He died at five minutes past 12 a.m., December 13th, 1867, in his 73rd year. His remains were laid in a vault adjoining the walls of Magdalen College Chapel, in accordance with his own expressed wish, " that he might not be separated in death from a society with which he had been connected for the greater part of his life, and to which he was so deeply indebted, not only for the kind countenance and support ever afforded him, but also for supplying him with the means of indulging in a career of life at once so congenial to his taste, and the best calculated to render him a useful member of the community."
Thus passed away one whose memory will long be cherished, not only by those whose good fortune it was to possess his personal friendship and enjoy his intimacy, but also by all who are in any degree interested in the progress of science and the unravelling the mysteries of nature He was never indifferent, prejudiced, or unprepared; but on every question his opinion was formed with rare impartiality, and expressed with rare intrepidity. Firm and gentle, prudent and generous, cheerful and sympathetic, pursuing no private ends, calm amid jarring creeds and contending parties, the personal influence of such a man on his contemporaries for half a century of active and thoughtful life fully matched the effect of his published works. Any one accustomed to a considerable degree of intimacy with him would be able to declare that he never met with any man more entirely truthful and just-minded: you might absolutely rely upon him in regard of deeds, thoughts, and motives. To convince his judgment was to enlist his sympathy, and secure his active help; to be censured with over-much strictness was a passport to such protection as he could honestly give.
His published writings are very numerous. Many of his essays and memoirs, scattered through various periodicals, and not easily accessible, were collected and arranged by their author in two volumes of miscellanies. The following is a list of the works which contain the principal results of Dr. Daubeny's scientific and literary labours: -
1. Description of Active and Extinct Volcanos, 8vo. London, 1826.
Second Edition, 1848. Several Supplements.
2. Tabular View of Volcanic Phœnomena, thick FoL. 1828.
3. Notes of a Tour in North America, 8vo. (Privately printed.) 1838.
4. Introduction to the Atomic Theory, 8vo. 1852.
5. Lectures on Roman Husbandry, 8vo. 1857.
6. Lectures on Climate, 8vo. 1863.
7. Trees and Shrubs of the Ancients, 8vo. 1865.
8. Miscellanies on Scientific and Literary Subjects, 2 vols. 8vo. 1867