Scientist of the Day - Torbern Bergman
The two volumes of Physisk Beskrifning öfver Jord-Klotet (1773-74), by Torbern Bergman, in the rare book reading room (Linda Hall Library)
Torbern Olof Bergman, a Swedish chemist, geologist, and physical geographer, was born Mar. 20, 1735, in Skara. He was a contemporary of Carl von Linné (Linnaeus), although 28 years younger, and easily Linnaeus's equal as a scientist, although everyone has heard of Linnaeus, and hardly anyone outside of Sweden knows about Bergman.
Portrait of Torbern Bergman, oil on canvas, by Per Krafft the Elder, unknown date and location (Wikimedia commons)
Bergman studied at Uppsala, with Linnaeus, became professor of chemistry there in 1767, and is best known for a paper on "electric affinities" in chemistry (1776). We will discuss Bergman's considerable contributions to chemistry at some later date. But today we are going to talk about his book on the constitution and history of the Earth, Physick Beskrifning öfver Jord-Klotet (Physical Description of the Earth, 1773-74), a lovely copy of which we have in our history of science collections (first image).
Title page, volume 1, Physisk Beskrifning öfver Jord-Klotet, by Torbern Bergman, 1773 (Linda Hall Library)
The book was first published in 1766, as part of a three-volume set by three different authors, none of which we own, and Bergman revised it, doubling its size, for the edition we do own. It appeared almost 25 years after the Comte de Buffon had published his own theory of the Earth in volume one of his Histoire naturelle (1749), but 20 years before James Hutton published his Theory of the Earth in 1795. There is not much Buffon in Bergman, but there is a lot of Bergman in Hutton. Bergman paid little attention to the creation story, and the account of the Flood, in Genesis, and much more attention to what the chemistry, structure, and stratigraphy of the rocks can tell us. He divided rock formations by age into primitive (granite), modified (gneiss), stratified (limestone), and jumbled (soil, gravel, volcanic rock), the very same four-fold division that Abraham Werner would later adopt.
Frontispiece to volume 1, Physisk Beskrifning öfver Jord-Klotet, by Torbern Bergman, depicting a rainbow, 1773 (Linda Hall Library)
Bergman had trouble understanding the origins of basalt, but everyone had problems with basalt before Hutton. He thought that evaporation and rainfall were responsible for maintaining springs and mountain streams, at a time when many believed that water circulated in the Earth like blood through the body. He thought electricity in the atmosphere was probably responsible for auroras (this was just 24 years after Ben Franklin had shown that there was electricity in the atmosphere).
The Giant’s Causeway, a basalt formation in northern Ireland, engraving, Physisk Beskrifning öfver Jord-Klotet, by Torbern Bergman, plate 2 at end, 1773 (Linda Hall Library)
All in all, the Physick Beskrifning is a remarkable book, which hardly anyone has looked at in the past century and a half. I show the frontispieces to both volumes here (fourth and sixth images), because I am relatively certain that no one has ever reproduced them before in an article like this. But Hutton knew the book intimately, and so did Werner, and I am guessing that Charles Lyell did as well, and Bergman's practical approach and chemical insights certainly affected all three men.
Frontispiece to volume 2 (cropped), Physisk Beskrifning öfver Jord-Klotet, by Torbern Bergman, showing a volcano erupting, perhaps Mt. Hekla in Iceland, 1774 (Linda Hall Library)
When we mounted an exhibition called Theories of the Earth, 1644-1830: The History of a Genre, back in 1984, we included Bergman's Physick Beskrifning öfver Jord-Klotet among the 53 books on display. You can read our one-paragraph description of the book here, in the online PDF version of the catalog (you will have to type “37” in the little box at the top, next to “of 72”). Surprisingly, the description holds up well.
William B. Ashworth, Jr., Consultant for the History of Science, Linda Hall Library and Associate Professor emeritus, Department of History, University of Missouri-Kansas City. Comments or corrections are welcome; please direct to ashworthw@umkc.edu.
