New Digital Resources: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1879++
The UCR Libraries and the California Digital Library are pleased to announce that the backfile for the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences is now available via Blackwell Synergy.
UCSF purchased this backfile for the entire UC system with end-of-year funds. The backfile begins with Volume 1, Issue 1 (December 1879). The range of scientific interest within the first issue is fascinating, with articles ranging from taxonomy, through chemistry and ballistics.
HENRY A. MOTT JR. PH.D., E. M. (1879)
XVIL.—Testing the Value of Guns by Firing under Water
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1 (1), 164–187.
Dr Mott replicated and extended an earlier set of experiments testing specific properties of firing guns under water. The Austrian Major General Uchatius had recently performed research sparked by Jules Verne's fictional account of Captain Nemo shooting albatross from a diving bell. (Vingt mille lieues sous les mers/ 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, was first published in 1870, only nine years before.)
With firearms provided by the Remington Manufacturing Company, Mott tested the penetrability of different caliber rifles and variations in cartridges on wooden boards. Captain Nemo didn't appear in the article again, but in conclusion Mott suggested that "in future, when an arm is to be tested, instad of firing in the air, it will be fired under water..." in a testing tank "in a room less than twelve feet square."
For this article and many more fascinating accounts of scientific research, you can access all years of the Annals through Scotty or directly from the NYAS website.
Access to this resource is possible from off campus. Click on Connect from Home for details.
Lizbeth Langston, Head-Science Information Services
Note: the image is from US Patent 1,294,407 by William Coryell, (Feb 18, 1919) for a water butt for use in small arms testing.
