Dorothea Bate mania
Where was Dorothea Bate born?
When was Dorothea Bate born?
When did she die?
Where did she die?
Where did she work most of her life?
Where did she go?
When did she get a job at the Natural Museum?
What was her first job?
When did she visit Cyprus?
What was she looking for?
Did she have an active social life?
When did she discover the Myotragus Balearicus?
Which countries in Africa did she visit? Where did she undertake the expeditions?
Did Dorothea have an active social life?
Thursday 22 April 2010
Tuesday 20 April 2010
English class corner
Comprehensive reading: scanning and skimming the text about Dorothea Bate
Discuss:
Taking into account that one of her discoveries was the Hippopotamus minus and the dwarf hippopotamus Which natural phenomenon related to prehistoric animals was she especially interested in?
Why can Dorothea be considered a versatile woman?
Being Dorothea a woman living at the beginning of the 20th century, what is it shocking about her behaviour?
Mention some anecdotes of Dorothea Bate's life which are shocking to you.
Are there some aspects of her life which are very similar to a scientist (man) whose discoveries were significant in the field of the origin of the species and of the man. Who are we talking about?
In what sese are these two biographies similar?
Discuss:
Taking into account that one of her discoveries was the Hippopotamus minus and the dwarf hippopotamus Which natural phenomenon related to prehistoric animals was she especially interested in?
Why can Dorothea be considered a versatile woman?
Being Dorothea a woman living at the beginning of the 20th century, what is it shocking about her behaviour?
Mention some anecdotes of Dorothea Bate's life which are shocking to you.
Are there some aspects of her life which are very similar to a scientist (man) whose discoveries were significant in the field of the origin of the species and of the man. Who are we talking about?
In what sese are these two biographies similar?
Dorothea Bate
Dorothea Minola Alice Bate FGS (8 November 1878 – 13 January 1951), also known as Dorothy Bate, was a British palaeontologist, a pioneer of archaeozoology. Her life's work was to find fossils of recently extinct mammals with a view to understanding how and why giant and dwarf forms evolved.
Born in Carmarthenshire, Bate was the daughter of Police Superintendent Henry Reginald Bate and his wife Elizabeth Fraser Whitehill. She had an older sister and a younger brother.She had little formal education and once commented that her education "was only briefly interrupted by school".
In 1898, at the age of nineteen, Bate got a job at the Natural History Museum in London, sorting bird skins in the Department of Zoology's Bird Room and later preparing fossils. There she remained for fifty years and learned ornithology, palaeontology, geology and anatomy, in the early years often working as a piece-worker.
In 1901 Bate published her first scientific paper, A short account of a bone cave in the Carboniferous limestone of the Wye valley, which appeared in the Geological Magazine, about bones of small Pleistocene mammals.
The same year, she first visited Cyprus, at her own expense, to search for bones there, finding twelve new deposits in ossiferous caves, among them bones of Hippopotamus minor. In 1902, with the benefit of a hard-won grant from the Royal Society, she returned to Cyprus, and in a cave in the Kyrenia hills discovered a new species of dwarf elephant, which she namedElephascypriotes later described in a paper for the Royal Society. While in Cyprus she also observed (and trapped, shot and skinned) living mammals and birds and prepared a number of other papers, including descriptions of the Cyprus Spiny Mouse (Acomys nesiotes) and a subspecies of the Winter Wren (Troglodytes troglodytes cypriotes). In Cyprus, Bate lodged mostly at Paphos with a District Commissioner called Wodehouse. When not travelling in remote areas, often alone, she led an active social life.
She later undertook expeditions to many other Mediterranean islands, including Crete, Corsica, Sardinia, Malta, and the Balearic Islands, and parts of Africa, including the Sudan, publishing work on their prehistoric fauna. In the Balearics in 1909, she discovered Myotragus balearicus, a previously unknown species of the subfamily Caprinae.On the plateau of Kat, in eastern Crete, she found remains of the Cretan dwarf hippopotamus. In Crete, she got to know the young archaeologists then excavating Knossos and throwing light on the Minoan civilisation.[
Finding herself pursued by the British Vice-Consul in Majorca, Bate commented: "I do hate old men who try to make love to one and ought not to in their official positions."
According to The Daily Telegraph -
“
Her days were spent on foot or mule, traversing barren and bandit-infested terrains and sleeping in flea-ridden hovels and shacks. She would wade through turbulent swells to reach isolated cliff caves where she scuffled about, covered in mud and clay, never without her collecting bag, nets, insect boxes, hammer and - later - dynamite.
”
In the 1920s, Bate worked with the archaeologist Professor Dorothy Garrod in Palestine, and in 1937 they published together The Stone Age of Mount Carmel volume 1, part 2: Palaeontology, the Fossil Fauna of the Wady el-Mughara Caves, interpreting the Mount Carmel excavations.[[8]. Among other finds, they reported remains of the hippopotamus.
Bate also worked with Percy R. Lowe on fossil ostriches in China. She was a pioneering archaeozoologist, especially in the field of climatic interpretation. She compared the relative proportions of Gazella and Dama remains.
In the late 1930s, towards the end of her career in field work, Bate found the bones of a giant tortoise in Bethlehem.
Many archaeologists and anthropologists relied on her expertise in identifying fossil bones, including Louis Leakey, Charles McBurney, and John Desmond Clark.
During the Second World War, Bate transferred from the Natural History Museum's department of geology in London to its zoological branch at Tring, and in 1948, a few months short of her seventieth birthday, she was appointed officer-in-charge there. Although suffering from cancer, she died of a heart attack on 13 January 1951, and as a Christian Scientist was cremated. Her personal papers were destroyed in a house fire shortly after her death.[ On her desk at Tring was a list of 'Papers to write'. By the last in the list she had written Swan Song.
Her estate at death amounted to £15,369.
In 2005, a 'Dorothea Bate facsimile' was created at the Natural History Museum as part of project to develop notable gallery characters to patrol its display cases. She is thus among other luminaries including Carl Linnaeus, Mary Anning, and William Smith. They tell stories and anecdotes of their lives and discoveries.
In her biography Discovering Dorothea: the Life of the Pioneering Fossil-Hunter Dorothea Bate, Karolyn Shindler describes Bate as "witty, acerbic, clever and courageous".Shindler is also the author of the biography in the 2004 edition of the Dictionary of National Biography.
Born in Carmarthenshire, Bate was the daughter of Police Superintendent Henry Reginald Bate and his wife Elizabeth Fraser Whitehill. She had an older sister and a younger brother.She had little formal education and once commented that her education "was only briefly interrupted by school".
In 1898, at the age of nineteen, Bate got a job at the Natural History Museum in London, sorting bird skins in the Department of Zoology's Bird Room and later preparing fossils. There she remained for fifty years and learned ornithology, palaeontology, geology and anatomy, in the early years often working as a piece-worker.
In 1901 Bate published her first scientific paper, A short account of a bone cave in the Carboniferous limestone of the Wye valley, which appeared in the Geological Magazine, about bones of small Pleistocene mammals.
The same year, she first visited Cyprus, at her own expense, to search for bones there, finding twelve new deposits in ossiferous caves, among them bones of Hippopotamus minor. In 1902, with the benefit of a hard-won grant from the Royal Society, she returned to Cyprus, and in a cave in the Kyrenia hills discovered a new species of dwarf elephant, which she namedElephascypriotes later described in a paper for the Royal Society. While in Cyprus she also observed (and trapped, shot and skinned) living mammals and birds and prepared a number of other papers, including descriptions of the Cyprus Spiny Mouse (Acomys nesiotes) and a subspecies of the Winter Wren (Troglodytes troglodytes cypriotes). In Cyprus, Bate lodged mostly at Paphos with a District Commissioner called Wodehouse. When not travelling in remote areas, often alone, she led an active social life.
She later undertook expeditions to many other Mediterranean islands, including Crete, Corsica, Sardinia, Malta, and the Balearic Islands, and parts of Africa, including the Sudan, publishing work on their prehistoric fauna. In the Balearics in 1909, she discovered Myotragus balearicus, a previously unknown species of the subfamily Caprinae.On the plateau of Kat, in eastern Crete, she found remains of the Cretan dwarf hippopotamus. In Crete, she got to know the young archaeologists then excavating Knossos and throwing light on the Minoan civilisation.[
Finding herself pursued by the British Vice-Consul in Majorca, Bate commented: "I do hate old men who try to make love to one and ought not to in their official positions."
According to The Daily Telegraph -
“
Her days were spent on foot or mule, traversing barren and bandit-infested terrains and sleeping in flea-ridden hovels and shacks. She would wade through turbulent swells to reach isolated cliff caves where she scuffled about, covered in mud and clay, never without her collecting bag, nets, insect boxes, hammer and - later - dynamite.
”
In the 1920s, Bate worked with the archaeologist Professor Dorothy Garrod in Palestine, and in 1937 they published together The Stone Age of Mount Carmel volume 1, part 2: Palaeontology, the Fossil Fauna of the Wady el-Mughara Caves, interpreting the Mount Carmel excavations.[[8]. Among other finds, they reported remains of the hippopotamus.
Bate also worked with Percy R. Lowe on fossil ostriches in China. She was a pioneering archaeozoologist, especially in the field of climatic interpretation. She compared the relative proportions of Gazella and Dama remains.
In the late 1930s, towards the end of her career in field work, Bate found the bones of a giant tortoise in Bethlehem.
Many archaeologists and anthropologists relied on her expertise in identifying fossil bones, including Louis Leakey, Charles McBurney, and John Desmond Clark.
During the Second World War, Bate transferred from the Natural History Museum's department of geology in London to its zoological branch at Tring, and in 1948, a few months short of her seventieth birthday, she was appointed officer-in-charge there. Although suffering from cancer, she died of a heart attack on 13 January 1951, and as a Christian Scientist was cremated. Her personal papers were destroyed in a house fire shortly after her death.[ On her desk at Tring was a list of 'Papers to write'. By the last in the list she had written Swan Song.
Her estate at death amounted to £15,369.
In 2005, a 'Dorothea Bate facsimile' was created at the Natural History Museum as part of project to develop notable gallery characters to patrol its display cases. She is thus among other luminaries including Carl Linnaeus, Mary Anning, and William Smith. They tell stories and anecdotes of their lives and discoveries.
In her biography Discovering Dorothea: the Life of the Pioneering Fossil-Hunter Dorothea Bate, Karolyn Shindler describes Bate as "witty, acerbic, clever and courageous".Shindler is also the author of the biography in the 2004 edition of the Dictionary of National Biography.
Friday 26 June 2009
The Modern style in Sóller
The mansion called Can Pruneras as well as the façade of de Bank of Sóller and of the church are probaly the most representative buildings of the modren style in Sóller. Can Prunera is situated onthe street "La Lluna". It was built between 1909 and 1911.
It is unifamiliar house. The building is made of calcareous stone in a barroque modern style. It is abundantly decorated with iconographs inspired by nature. This decorartive programme abounds with organic inspiration as well as geometrical and figurative design. The nymphs, playing instruments, project from the ceiling at the entrance. In the dining still lifes depicting hunting and fishing can be seen showing partridges, hares and lobsters.
The ornamental designs in Can Prunera are not limited to the walls and ceilings. They can also be seen in the stained glass, the balustrade, the marquetry of the furniture and the roof. The building as a whole is outstanding, as it includes ornamental elements both inside and out.
The building belongs to the company "Ferrocarril de Sóller" (Sóller railway). Thanks to the contribution of the foundation "tren de l'art" (Train of the Art) the building is being totally restored. This reconstruction work is being subsidised by the Balearic Island Government and the European Union with the aim of turning it into an interpretation of Modernism in Mallorca.
It is unifamiliar house. The building is made of calcareous stone in a barroque modern style. It is abundantly decorated with iconographs inspired by nature. This decorartive programme abounds with organic inspiration as well as geometrical and figurative design. The nymphs, playing instruments, project from the ceiling at the entrance. In the dining still lifes depicting hunting and fishing can be seen showing partridges, hares and lobsters.
The ornamental designs in Can Prunera are not limited to the walls and ceilings. They can also be seen in the stained glass, the balustrade, the marquetry of the furniture and the roof. The building as a whole is outstanding, as it includes ornamental elements both inside and out.
The building belongs to the company "Ferrocarril de Sóller" (Sóller railway). Thanks to the contribution of the foundation "tren de l'art" (Train of the Art) the building is being totally restored. This reconstruction work is being subsidised by the Balearic Island Government and the European Union with the aim of turning it into an interpretation of Modernism in Mallorca.
William Waldren
William Waldren was born in New York City (1924) and died in Deià (2003). He dedicated his life to painting and archaeology. He spent most of his life in Mallorca.
He studied at the Art Students League of New York and the Academie Julian in Paris. In 1953 he settled in Deià (Mallorca), where in 1962 he created the artistic grup "Els deu d'Es Teix".
William waldren is buried in Deià where his wife and daughters still live.
Waldren made important excavations in different parts of Mallorca, above all in Serra de Tramuntana. He also published many books on his discoveries.
In Deià, there is an archeology museum founded by him (deià Archaelogical Museum Research Centre, DAMARC) which can still be visited today. Some of his collections are also exhibited in the Balearic Prehistoric Archeology museum. In this museum, there is a collection of fossil remains of Myotragus balearicus Bate, an artiodactyl native to the Balearics, whose extinction coincided with the appearance of the human population on the archipelago. The owner of the collection is DAMARC and it is permanently housed at "the Museu Balear de Ciències Naturals" for its suitable conservation. All the material, currently going through Museum treatment and cataloging, comes from the excavations carried out by William Waldren in the Muleta Cave (near Sóller). It is the most important collection of fossil remains of Myotragus balearicus Bate in the world due to the number of samples it contains.
Perhaps, this sentence of his is the best commentary on his own work:
"My work could be the line of difference between two states. The line between life and death, between black and white, between light and dark, love and hate. The line that leaves a wave printed on the wet sand" William Waldren
He studied at the Art Students League of New York and the Academie Julian in Paris. In 1953 he settled in Deià (Mallorca), where in 1962 he created the artistic grup "Els deu d'Es Teix".
William waldren is buried in Deià where his wife and daughters still live.
Waldren made important excavations in different parts of Mallorca, above all in Serra de Tramuntana. He also published many books on his discoveries.
In Deià, there is an archeology museum founded by him (deià Archaelogical Museum Research Centre, DAMARC) which can still be visited today. Some of his collections are also exhibited in the Balearic Prehistoric Archeology museum. In this museum, there is a collection of fossil remains of Myotragus balearicus Bate, an artiodactyl native to the Balearics, whose extinction coincided with the appearance of the human population on the archipelago. The owner of the collection is DAMARC and it is permanently housed at "the Museu Balear de Ciències Naturals" for its suitable conservation. All the material, currently going through Museum treatment and cataloging, comes from the excavations carried out by William Waldren in the Muleta Cave (near Sóller). It is the most important collection of fossil remains of Myotragus balearicus Bate in the world due to the number of samples it contains.
Perhaps, this sentence of his is the best commentary on his own work:
"My work could be the line of difference between two states. The line between life and death, between black and white, between light and dark, love and hate. The line that leaves a wave printed on the wet sand" William Waldren
The textile industry of Sóller
In Sóller the exportation of silk and the existence of some weavers, above all women, are documented since the 17th century. Moreover, the production of worsted is also documented.
In the 19th century there was an incipient industrialization in the area and the capitalist system was introduced, specially in the textile industry and for this reason important investments in highly mechanized factories were made. The transoceanic emigration to Puerto Rico or to France and the commercialisation of the orange favoured these great investments.
The created infrastructure helped to foster a commercial network of the textile production. In this atmosphere of economic expansion, the Bank of Sóller was also created (1890-1943).
Different textile companies from Sóller specialized in making striped clothe, one of the main fabrics which were exported. During the first two decenniums of the 20th century the textile industry experienced a period of productive expansion.
In 1928 there were 9 productive textile factories.
During the decenniums of 1950 and 1960, the textile industry as well as the factories disappeared. Among other reasons, this was caused by the impossibility to adapt itself to the synthetic clothes, the lack of inversions to modernise, the technical backwardness...
The businessmen started focusing their attention on other business which were more profitable and didn't require this extent of modernisation: the acquisition of real estates, tourism and the first hotels.
In 1970 they closed all the factories, with the exception of Ca les Ànimes which resisted the crisis until 1990 when it finally closed.
The tram
The first line of the electric tram to Sóller was inaugurated from Sóller to Port of Sóller on the 4th of October in 1913 .
The tram of Sóller started being built after the inauguration of the railway line from Palma to Sóller. The project was designed and directed by Pere Garau. 4.868 metres of railway were installed. It outstands the iron bridge over the “ Major stream” .
Initially the tram had its own power station placed in the Sóller railway station. It worked with an internal combustion engine of 65 cart-horses which operated on a dynamo Siemens-Schuckert and produced continuous power of 600 volts.
Although the tram of Sóller was conceived for the transport of passengers, it was also used to transport goods to the port. The fresh fish was carried in a small isothermic truck and the coal was also carried in towes to the old submarine military headquarters in the Port of Sóller and to the Gas factory.
The three self-propelled vehicles of the tram numbered from 1 to 3 and the towes numbered 5 and 6 are the original ones, ordered from the company Carde & Escoriaza in Zaragoza. The open tramcars were bought in the trams of Palma in 1954. Moreover, the tram of Sóller has five self-propelled vehicles from Lisbon.
The landscape of port of Sóller is charming; the tram runs past orange orchards and the harbour .
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