here at the academy

Back to Life

Lisa Owens-Viani

Some of the Academy's oldest, most valuable specimens are not preserved in formaldehyde or glass jars. Instead, they live on in the pages of rare monographs, atlases, and other works, many of which were created by the naturalists of eighteenth and nineteenth century scientific expeditions. Some of these works are well known, such as Audubon's The Birds of America, John Gould's hummingbird monographs, and Redouté's Les Roses. Others are the products of somewhat obscure yet important early scientific forays, such as the 1848–1852 United States Exploring Expedition, the first government-sponsored expedition of United States scientists, best known for its discovery of Antarctica.

Lawrence Currie, User Services Librarian, cares for the over 1,500 volumes kept in the climate- and security-controlled rare book room, handling them with white cotton gloves that must be washed after each use. As delicate as these volumes are, their exquisite illustrations (many of which were first engraved and then painstakingly colored by hand) remain astonishingly vibrant. In intricate detail, they capture the texture of the feathers, fur, shells, spines–and even the essence–of their subjects, which come alive on the aging pages.

Snails and clams dance off the pages of the atlas from early French naturalist Dumont-D'urville's 1826–1829 expedition around the Pacific Ocean. One pale pink nudibranch resembles the infinite layers of a tutu from the Paris Opera Ballet; another, pea green with polka-dots, a piece of pop art. A pale yellow nudibranch covered with tiny green dots becomes a miniature pointillist forest.

The fishes in Marcus Bloch's Ichthyologie, published between 1785 and 1797, shimmer with life, each scale engraved and then hand-painted with luminescent water colors. In a set of 12 volumes, Ichthyologie described over 200 species of fish for the first time, according to Currie.

But as aesthetically pleasing as they are, the Academy's rare books are also serving a more practical purpose, by linking the science of two centuries ago with today's research. Director of Research Terry Gosliner recently found himself consulting the atlas of mollusks and shells from the United States Exploring Expedition. Gosliner had discovered what he thought was a new species of mollusk, a large orange nudibranch.

"Basically, we were in the process of describing it when we went back to the older literature and found it buried in this 1852 monograph by Augustus Gould," says Gosliner. Gould had described the nudibranch, Gymnodoris aurita, from his observations of the animal during the United States Exploring Expedition's visit to Fiji, while Gosliner's recent specimen came from the Philippines. Gymnodoris aurita hadn't been recorded in the scientific literature since Gould's original 1852 description, says Gosliner, who redescribed it in a recent paper. "These old books are especially important to the Academy's research in systematics," he explains. "Some libraries no longer keep anything older than ten years. In our work, it is essential to have all of the literature."

In researching the phylogeny and distribution of existing species of sand dollars, Rich Mooi, Chair of Invertebrate Zoology and Geology, went back to the zoology atlas from an 1815–1818 Russian circum-global expedition, in which early naturalist Johann Friedrich Eschscholtz (after whom the Eschscholzia genus–and California poppy–were named) first described the common sand dollar of the Pacific coast, Dendraster excentricus. "There's often a taxonomic mess surrounding certain species, so in systematics we need to go back to ground zero," explains Mooi. Mooi wanted to confirm the type specimen for D. excentricus, and says that after consulting the zoology volume, it became clear that Eschscholtz had been the first to describe it.

Curator of Botany Frank Almeda frequently consults an 1807 monograph on the Melastomataceae plant family, a product of the Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland expedition to South America between 1799 and 1804, on which over 60,000 plants were collected. Some of the botanical engravings in this monograh are the best–or the only–published illustrations of certain species, says Almeda. Illustrations from the early expeditions can be especially important to botanists for clarification and identification purposes, since the actual specimens often became damaged or discolored in transit. "These illustrations," says Almeda, "provide clues to interesting biology that written descriptions or specimens sometimes do not."

For instance, some of the engravings in the Melastoma monograph depict plants bearing flowers of different colors, a clue that a species' flowers may change color after pollination. The early illustrations also show the true three-dimensional shape of flowers that pressed specimens cannot preserve. And sometimes they even help clarify inaccurate species descriptions that have been perpetuated over the years, says Almeda. Gesturing to an illustration in the Monographies des Melastoma, he adds emphatically, "These are what speak to you."

Currie and newly-appointed Academy Librarian Anne Malley are happy to see these treasured books being put to practical use and creating a thread of continuity between early naturalists and Academy scientists. Concerned about the future of the books, they are looking for funding to upgrade the rare book room's environmental controls and security: ironically, as the real plants and animals continue to disappear, people seem more determined than ever to possess their likenesses. Since techniques for stealing pages from rare books have become increasingly sophisticated, the Academy's collection must not only be kept in a secure area but can be perused only under the watchful eyes of library staff.

As Malley gazes at a page of brilliantly-colored nudibranchs, she offers another perspective, one perhaps surprising for a librarian–and one with which art thieves would probably not agree. "These are incredible works," she says. "But they can't begin to compare to the living creatures."

Lisa Owens-Viani is the assistant editor at California Wild.