Canary Islands, territory of scientific explorations. Humboldt Project: scientific expeditions to the Canary Islands in the XVIII and XIX centuries

Alberto Relancio Menéndez (coordinacion) Affiliation: Fundación Canaria Orotava de Historia de la Ciencia (Tenerife, España) Biography: Not available Mila Ruiz Pacheco (coordinacion) Affiliation: Not available Biography: Not available Close window

Coordination: Alberto Relancio Menéndez; Mila Ruiz Pacheco About the authors  Publication year: 2007 Language: Spanish; French; Italian Subjects: History of Science, Popular Science Free eBook

Abstract:

Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the Canary Archipelago became a focus of study for the European expeditions that sailed to America, Africa, the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and for those that traveled exclusively to the Islands. The main purposes were to draw up maps, to fix the longitude at the Meridian of El Hierro, to catalogue plants and animals, and to study the volcanic geological origins, the climate, the geography, and the history of the Islands. Most of these travelers left their traces in the form of written texts, engravings or drawings, which are conserved in libraries and scientific institutions throughout Europe. Today, when the future of the Canaries is closely related to Europe, this documentation constitutes an essential legacy preserving this relation. The aim of the Historical Heritage of the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands is to recover this legacy as it represents a great part of the historical relation between Europe and the Islands. The Humboldt Project aims at an open digital library dealing with a core aspect of the history of science: the role that scientific expeditions played in the discovery of the world. It is concerned with the central documents resulting from European expeditions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, whose investigations focused on the Canarian Archipelago.

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This book was added to our online catalog on Friday 12 August, 2011.