Edward Forbes

Edward Forbes ( born February 12, 1815 in Douglas, Isle of Man, † November 18, 1854 in Edinburgh ) was a British naturalist and malacologist. He is regarded as the founder of Zoogeologie or biogeography and as a co-founder of deep-sea research.

Life

Even as a child he had a lively and varied interest; when he was not busy reading or writing poetry, drawing caricatures, he gathered a natural history objects, such as insects, shells, minerals, and plants. From the fifth to the age of eleven he was ailing and was excluded from participation in a school, in 1828 he was then a fellow at Athole House Academy in Douglas (Isle of Man). In June 1831 he left the Isle of Man and went to London where he studied art and drawing. In October of the same year he gave the idea to make painting his profession, on. He initially returned home, and then the following month to enroll as a student of medicine in the University of Edinburgh, University of Edinburgh. His vacation in 1832 he spent in diligent work on the natural history of the Isle of Man He was a naturalist and without taste for the practical duties of a doctor. So Forbes was in the spring of 1836, the idea of obtaining a medical degree, and devoted himself entirely to science. In the winter of 1836-1837 he was in Paris, where he lectures at the Jardin des Plantes (see also Muséum national d' histoire naturelle) on natural history, comparative anatomy, geology and mineralogy visited. He left Paris in April 1837, and went to Algiers, where he worked on freshwater mollusks. In the autumn of the same year he enlisted in Edinburgh as a student of literature, and in 1838 his first band, Malacologia monensis, an overview of the types of the Isle of Man and its surrounding area appeared ..

1841 Forbes Curator of the Museum of the Geological Society of London, in 1842 Professor at King's College London in 1844 and paleontologist of the British Geological Survey. In 1853 he became President of the Geological Society of London, and shortly before his death, Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh.

Excursions

In 1833 he made a trip to Arendal, Norway, the botanical results of this trip were in Loudon 's Magazine of Natural History, published from 1835 to 1836. In the summer of 1834, he devoted much time for Exkavitationen in the Irish Sea and the following year he traveled to France, Switzerland and Germany. Forbes participated in a Mediterranean expedition in part with the beacon in the year 1841-1842, the left manifold impressions with him.

Scientific performance

Forbes proved by catching a starfish from about 400 m depth of the sea, that sea life is not limited to near-surface region. However, from his observations he concluded that marine life would always poorer in species in increasing depth, and hypothesized that the deep sea below 300 thread ( 500 m) depth is a azoic zone in which no life existed ( Abyssus - theory). Or in other words, that the marine biodiversity decreases rapidly with depth.

Works

  • History of British Star Fishes, 1841
  • On the Connection Between The distribution of the existing Fauna and Flora of the British Isles, and the Geological Changes Which have affected Their Area, Especially falling on the epoch of the Northern Drift, 1846
  • A history of British Mollusca, and Their shells. London: Van Voorst, 1853
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