William Maclure

Maclure was born in 1763 in Ayr, Scotland.

After a brief visit to New York City in 1782, he began work with the merchants Miller, Hart & Co, who traded and shipped goods to and from America. Maclure was based in the London office but regularly travelled to France and Ireland on business.Donachie, I. William Maclure: Science, Pestalozzianism and Reform in Europe and the United States [http://www.infed.org/thinkers/maclure.htm Accessed 26 August 2012] In 1796 business affairs took him to Virginia, which he thereafter made his home.

In 1803 he visited France as one of the commissioners appointed to settle the claims of American citizens on the French government; and during the few years then spent in Europe he applied himself with enthusiasm to the study of geology.{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Maclure, William|volume=17|page=263}}

While residing in Switzerland, he became impressed with what is now called the Pestalozzi School System, from Swiss pedagogist Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827).{{Citation needed|date=June 2020}}

Maclure visit to Spain in 1808; this visit ended abruptly by the outbreak of the Peninsular War. After his return home in 1808 he commenced the self-imposed task of making a geological survey of the United States. Almost every state in the Union was traversed and mapped by him, the Allegheny Mountains being crossed and recrossed some 50 times.Page 39 in Greene, J.C. and Burke, J.G. (1978) The Science of Minerals in the Age of Jefferson. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, Vol. 68, No. 4, pp. 1-113 The results of his unaided labours were submitted to the American Philosophical Society in a memoir entitled Observations on the Geology of the United States explanatory of a Geological Map, and published in the Society's Transactions, together with the first geological map of that country, [http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~959~60260:A-Map-of-the-United-States-of-Ameri?sort=Pub_Date%2CPub_List_No%2CSeries_No&qvq=q:Geology;sort:Pub_Date%2CPub_List_No%2CSeries_No;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=2&trs=1282 Maclure's 1809 Geological Map].{{cite journal |last=Maclure |first= William |title= Observations on the Geology of the United States, explanatory of a Geological Map|journal=Transactions of the American Philosophical Society |volume= 6|year=1809 |pages= [https://archive.org/details/jstor-1004821/page/n1 411]-428 |url= https://archive.org/details/jstor-1004821 |via= Internet Archive |access-date= January 29, 2019 }} This antedates William Smith's geological map of England and Wales (with part of Scotland) by six years, although it was constructed using a different classification of rocks.

File:Maclure Geological Map Transactions 1817.jpg

In 1812, while in France, Maclure became a member of the newly founded Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (ANSP). In 1817 Maclure became president of the ANSP, a post he held for the next 22 years.{{Cite journal |last=Calvo Rebollar |first=Miguel |date=2011 |title=William Maclure, glauberite and the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia |url=https://zenodo.org/records/8009947 |journal=Mineral up |volume=2 |issue=5 |pages=6–7}}

In 1817, while residing in Europe, Maclure brought before the same society a revised edition of his map, and his great geological memoir, which he had issued separately, with some additional matter, under the title Observations on the Geology of the United States of America.{{cite journal |last=Maclure |first=William |title=Observations on the Geology of the United States of North America; With Remarks on the Probable Effects That May Be Produced by the Decomposition of the Different Classes of Rocks on the Nature and Fertility of Soils: Applied to the Different States of the Union, Agreeably to the Accompanying Geological Map |journal= Transactions of the American Philosophical Society |volume= 1|year= 1818 |pages=1–91 |jstor= 1004895|doi=10.2307/1004895 |hdl=2027/uc1.32106008399278 |hdl-access=free }}{{cite book |last=Maclure |first= William |title= Observations on the Geology of the United States of America; with Some Remarks on the Effect Produced on the Nature and Fertility of the Soils, By the Decomposition of the Different Classes of Rocks; With An Application to the Fertility of Every State in the Union, In Reference to the Accompanying Geological Map; With Two Plates |publisher= Printed for the Author by Abraham Small and sold by him and J. Melish |place= Philadelphia |year= 1817 |url= https://archive.org/details/observationsong00maclgoog|quote=William Maclure. |access-date= January 29, 2019 |via= Internet Archive}} Subsequent surveys have corroborated the general accuracy of Maclure's observations.

In 1820 he visited Spain, because since the restoration of the Constitution in July 1820, Spain was the only liberal country in Europe. He attempted to establish an agricultural college near the city of Alicante, but en 1823 the invasion of the French army, the Hundred Thousand Sons of Sait Louis, imposed absolutism again and in May 2, 1824, he abandoned Alicante. Returning to America in 1824, he settled for some years at New Harmony, Indiana, seeking to develop his vision of the agricultural college. Failing health ultimately required him to relinquish the attempt and to seek (in 1827) a more congenial climate in Mexico. There, in 1840, at San Ángel, he died aged 77. His will provided for a trust fund consisting of most of his property. Under the terms of the Trust, 160 workingmen's libraries were established. The treatment of Maclure's burial site in Mexico was bereft of the honors due the respected humanitarian and geologist:

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| quote=At the distance of a few feet from them, repose the remains of William McClure, a countryman, dear to American science. The Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia, of which he was so long the President and benefactor, erected a small marble monument over his grave, and surrounded it with an iron rail. A short time before I left Mexico, the rail was torn down, the monument upset, and, on the same night, the newly-buried body of a Scotchman was disinterred, stripped of its clothes, and thrown over the wall of the cemetery!|source=Brantz Mayer[https://archive.org/details/mexicoasitwasan01mayegoog Mexico the Way It Was and Is.(1847) p.158] at archive.org|title=The burial site of William Maclure|width = 99%|align= left|bgcolor= #c6dbf7

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• Summary of the second phase of Maclure's life (after Moore 1947) J. Percy Moore (1947) William Maclure - Scientist and Humanitarian Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. Vol. 91, No. 3. pp.234-249

{{Main|New Harmony, Indiana}}

The New Harmony commune in Indiana produced a number of geologists, naturalists, and botanists which were influenced by Maclure, such as the siblings Robert Dale Owen (1801–1877), social reformer; David Dale Owen (1807–1860), geologist, artist; Jane Dale Owen Fauntleroy (1806–1861), educator; and Richard Dale Owen (1810–1890) geologist, first president of Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana. They interacted there with a formidable crop of contemporary geologists, social reformers, botanists, paleobotanists, ethnologists, civil engineers, etc.

• Maclure, W. 1817. Observations on the geology of the West India Islands, from Barbadoes to Santa Cruz, inclusive. Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 1(6), 134–149. ([https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/79416#page/178/mode/1up BHL link])
• Maclure, W. 1818. Essay on the formation of rocks, or an inquiry into the probable origin of their present form and structure. Part 1. Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 1(7), 261–276. ([https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/79416#page/324/mode/1up BHL link])
• Maclure, W. 1818. Essay on the formation of rocks, or an inquiry into the probable origin of their present form and structure. Part 2. Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 1(7), 285–310. ([https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/79416#page/324/mode/1up BHL link])
• Maclure, W. 1818. Essay on the formation of rocks, or an inquiry into the probable origin of their present form and structure. Part 3. Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 1(7), 327–345. ([https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/79416#page/393/mode/1up BHL link])
• Maclure, W. 1818. On the geology of the United States of North America, with remarks on the probable effects that may be produced by the decomposition of the different classes of rocks, on the nature and fertility of soils: applied to the different states of the Union agreeably to the accompanying geological map. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society new series 1, 1–92. ([https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/80765#page/33/mode/1up BHL link])

The European Journals of William MaclureThe European Journals of William Maclure. William Maclure, edited by John S. Doskey. Diane Publishing, (1988), {{ISBN|0-87169-171-X}}, 9780871691712, 815 pages. was a monumental book, describing, charting, and chronicling much of the features of Europe.

• Charles Alexandre Lesueur described a new genus of fossil ammonites called Maclurite.{{Cite journal|last=Le Sueur|first=C. A.|date=1818|title=Observations on a new genus of fossil shells|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/79416#page/374/mode/1up|journal=Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia|volume=1|issue=7|pages=310–313}}
• Macluritidae an extinct family of relatively large, Lower Ordovician to Devonian, macluritacean gastropods is named in honor of Maclure.{{cite book|author=Benjamin Eli Smith|title=The Century dictionary and cyclopedia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wGlXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA3562|year=1899|publisher=The Century co.|pages=3562–}}
• Maclura a genus of flowering plants in the mulberry family, Moraceae is named in honor of Maclure. The genus includes the inedible Osage-orange, which is used as mosquito repellent and grown throughout the United States as a hedging plant.{{Silvics |first=J D |last=Burton |volume=2 |genus=Maclura |species=pomifera |accessdate=2009-03-03}}

• Mount Maclure in Yosemite National Park.{{cite Farquhar |index=M |accessdate=2009-08-14}}
• Maclure Glacier, one of the last remaining glaciers in Yosemite National Park.{{Cite map|publisher=TopoQwest (United States Geological Survey Maps)|title=Mount Lyell, CA|url=http://www.topoquest.com/map.php?lat=37.74673&lon=-119.28266&datum=nad83&zoom=4|access-date=2012-09-30}}{{cite gnis|id=251984|name=Maclure Glacier|accessdate=2012-09-30}}

{{portal|Biography|Geology}}

• Geologic map of Georgia

{{reflist|2}}

• {{cite book |last=Morton, M.D. |first=Samuel George |author-link= Samuel George Morton |title= A Memoir of William Maclure, Esq., Late President of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Read July 1, 1841 and Published by Direction of the Academy |publisher=T.K. & P.G. Collins |place= Philadelphia |year= 1841 |url= https://archive.org/details/memoirofwilliamm00mort/page/n5 |access-date= January 19, 2019 |via=Internet Archive}}
• Harvey L. Carter, "William Maclure," Indiana Magazine of History, vol. 31, no. 2 (June 1935), pp. 83–91. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/27786722 In JSTOR]
• Alberto Gil Novales, Maclure en España. Iniciativas de Cultura, 1981.
• Donald E. Pitzer, "William Maclure's Boatload of Knowledge: Science and Education into the Midwest", Indiana Magazine of History, vol. 94, (1998), pp. 110–135.
• Leonard Warren, Maclure of New Harmony: Scientist, Progressive Educator, Radical Philanthropist. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2009.

• [http://academic.emporia.edu/aberjame/histgeol/maclure/maclure.htm Biography of William Maclure] by James S. Aber
• [http://faculty.evansville.edu/ck6/bstud/maclure.html William Maclure] at University of Evansville
• [http://faculty.evansville.edu/ck6/bstud/wmi.html New Harmony Workingmen's Institute, legacy of William Maclure] at University of Evansville
• [http://www.ansp.org/about/history.php History of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia]
• [http://faculty.evansville.edu/ck6/bstud/nh.html New Harmony Scientists, Educators, Writers & Artists] at University of Evansville
• {{cite web |url= https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-12-02-0127|title=Thomas Jefferson to William Maclure, 2 November 1817 |website= Founders Online, National Archives, version of January 18, 2019, [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, vol. 12, 1 September 1817 to 21 April 1818, ed. J. Jefferson Looney. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014, pp. 165–166.]|access-date= January 30, 2019}}

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Category:1763 births

Category:1840 deaths

Category:Scottish geologists

Category:American geologists

Category:People from New Harmony, Indiana

Category:British emigrants to the United States

Category:18th-century Scottish merchants

Category:19th-century Scottish merchants

Category:Members of the American Philosophical Society