Free papers

As I have already mentioned on the Beagle Project blog, the Royal Society has opened its online archives to all visitors until 1st February, 2009. You can search them here.

The following papers from the Notes and Records of the Royal Society caught the attention of this particular history of science buff:

• Darwin in the Galápagos: his footsteps through the archipelago
• From Darwin and Wallace to the discovery of Invar
• The theory of natural selection of Alfred Russel Wallace FRS
• Mind the gap: did Darwin avoid publishing his theory for many years?
• Darwin’s illness: a final diagnosis
• Robert Fitzroy and the myth of the ‘Marsden Square’: Transatlantic rivalries in early marine meteorology
• Erasmus Darwin’s improved design for steering carriages—and cars
• The selfish gene at 30: the origin and career of a book and its title
• The discovery of microorganisms by Robert Hooke and Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, Fellows of The Royal Society
• The Society of Arts and Joseph Banks: a first step in London learned society
• The work-diaries of Robert Boyle: a newly discovered source and its internet publication
• Benjamin Franklin in Europe: electrician, academician, politician

Plenty of food for thought over the next few weeks.