Edward S. Morse

From Vero - Wikipedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Template:Short description Template:Similar names Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox person

Edward Sylvester Morse (June 18, 1838 – December 20, 1925) was an American zoologist, archaeologist, and orientalist. He is considered the "Father of Japanese archaeology."

Early life

Morse was born in Portland, Maine to Jonathan Kimball Morse and Jane Seymour (Becket) Morse.<ref name="Kingsley1926">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Howard1935">Template:Cite journal</ref> His father was a Congregationalist deacon who held strict Calvinist beliefs. His mother, who did not share her husband's religious beliefs, encouraged her son's interest in the sciences. An unruly student, Morse was expelled from all but one of the schools he attended in his youth — the Portland village school, the academy at Conway, New Hampshire, in 1851, and Bridgton Academy in 1854 (for carving on desks). He also attended Gould Academy in Bethel, Maine. At Gould Academy, Morse came under the influence of Dr. Nathaniel True who encouraged Morse to pursue his interest in the study of nature.<ref name="Martin1995">Template:Cite journal</ref>

He preferred to explore the Atlantic coast in search of shells and snails, or go to the field to study the fauna and flora. By the age of thirteen he had put together an impressive collection of shells.<ref name="Dall1926">Template:Cite journal</ref> Despite his lack of formal education, his collections soon earned him the visit of eminent scientists from Boston, Washington and even the United Kingdom.<ref name="Martin1995"/> He was noted for his work with land snails, and discovered two new species: Helix asteriscus, now known as Planogyra asteriscus, and H. Milium, now known as Striatura milium.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> These species were presented at meetings of the Boston Society of Natural History in 1857 and 1859.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Pholas costata, the angel-wing clam. From Augustus Gould's Invertebrata of Massachusetts, illustrated by Morse.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

He was a gifted draftsman, a skill that served him well throughout his career. As a young man, it enabled him to be employed as a mechanical draftsman at the Portland Locomotive Company and later preparing wood engravings for natural history publications. This relatively well-paid work enabled him to save enough money to support his further education. Morse was recommended by Philip Pearsall Carpenter to Louis Agassiz (1807–1873) at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University for his intellectual qualities and talent at drawing. After completing his studies he served as Agassiz's assistant in charge of conservation, documentation and drawing collections of mollusks and brachiopods until 1862.<ref name="Kingsley1926"/><ref name="Martin1995"/> He became especially interested in brachiopods during this time, and his first paper on the topic was published in 1862.<ref name="Morse1962">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Sketch1878">Template:Cite journal</ref>

During the American Civil War, Morse attempted to enlist in the 25th Maine Infantry, but was turned down due to a chronic tonsil infection. On June 18, 1863, Morse married Ellen ("Nellie") Elizabeth Owen in Portland. The couple had two children, Edith Owen Morse and John Gould Morse (named after Morse's lifelong friend Major John Mead Gould).<ref name="Martin1995"/>

Career

Zoogenetes harpa, from Morse (1864).<ref name="Morse1864">Template:Cite journal</ref> Much enlarged - the snail is about 3-4mm long.

Morse rapidly became successful in the field of zoology, specializing in malacology or the study of molluscs. In 1864, he published his first work devoted to molluscs under the title Observations On The Terrestrial Pulmonifera of Maine.<ref name="Morse1864"/> Morse had been elected to the position of curator of the Portland Natural History Society, a position he hoped would become permanent. But in 1866 the Great Fire destroyed the buildings of the Society, along with much of Portland, and also the chance of a salaried position.<ref name="Martin1995"/> An alternative opportunity arose with the foundation of the Peabody Academy of Science in Salem. Morse returned to Massachusetts to work at the academy, along with Caleb Cooke, Alpheus Hyatt, Alpheus Spring Packard and Frederic Ward Putnam (director), all former students of Agassiz.<ref name="Kingsley1926"/><ref name="Martin1995"/>

Morse's Illustration for Alpheus Packard's Home of the Bees. Plate 10 from the American Naturalist Volume 1.

In 1867, along with Putnam, Hyatt and Packard, Morse co-founded the scientific journal The American Naturalist, and Morse became one of its editors. The establishment of the Journal was very important for American Natural History. It was written by experts in the field, but aimed to be accessible to a wide readership. This aim was greatly helped by the high quality of the illustrations, many of them provided by Morse himself.<ref name="Howard1935"/> Morse's desire to bring natural history to a wider audience also led him to give lectures to a variety of audiences. His combination of broad knowledge, speaking skill, and ability to draw quickly on the blackboard with both hands made him a popular presenter.<ref name="Kingsley1926"/><ref name="Howard1935"/>

Morse continued his work on brachiopods, often considered to be his most important scientific work.<ref name="Kingsley1926"/><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> In 1869, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Between 1869 and 1873 he published a series of papers on the embryology and classification of the group.<ref name="Morse1869">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Morse1870">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Morse1870b">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Morse1871">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Morse1872">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Morse1873">Template:Cite journal</ref> Whereas in 1865 he had accepted the majority view that placed brachiopoda within the molluscs,<ref name="Morse1965">Template:Cite journal</ref> in 1870 largely on the basis of embryological observations, he proposed that the brachiopoda should be removed from the molluscs, and placed within the annelids, a group of segmented worms.<ref name="Morse1870"/> Modern taxonomy agrees with the first of these propositions, but not the second, classifying molluscs, brachiopods and annelids as three separate phyla within the superphylum Lophotrochozoa.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Helen Muir-Wood has given an account of the history of the classification of the brachiopods that places Morse's work in its historical context.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Illustration by Morse for John Mead Gould's How to camp out<ref name=Gould1877>Template:Cite book</ref>

From 1871 to 1874, Morse was appointed to the chair of comparative anatomy and zoology at Bowdoin College. In 1873 and 1874 he was a teacher at the summer school established by Agassiz on Penikese Island. Though the school only operated for a few years, several of its students went on to distinguished careers, including David Starr Jordan.<ref name="Morse1923">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Martin1995"/> In 1874, he became a lecturer at Harvard University. In 1876, Morse was named a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1877, he provided the illustrations for a book by his friend John Mead Gould, entitled How to camp out.<ref name=Gould1877/><ref name=Gould2009>Gould, John M. Template:Cite web</ref>

During this period the issue of evolution caused much discussion and controversy. Agassiz was an opponent of evolution. He argued that the persistence of animals such as Lingula (a brachiopod) over immense periods of time, from the Silurian to the present day, with little change was "a fatal objection to the theory of gradual development".<ref name="Agassiz1860">Template:Cite journal</ref> However all of his students subsequently adopted evolutionary theory in various forms.<ref name="Dexter1979">Template:Cite journal</ref> A clear statement of Morse's position on evolution is found in his address, as vice-president (Natural History) of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at its Buffalo NY meeting in August 1876 (reprinted under the title of What American Zoologists have done for Evolution)<ref name="Morse1876">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> He adopts a clear selectionist position, in contrast, for example, to Hyatt, who was a neo-Lamarckian.<ref name="Dexter1979"/> He addresses the issue of human origins, and finds the evidence for "the lowly origin of man", and common ancestry with apes, convincing. He did not only express these views in a western context, but was subsequently the first to bring Darwin's theory of evolution to Japan.<ref name="Shimao1981">Template:Cite journal</ref>

Japan

In June 1877 Morse first visited Japan in search of coastal brachiopods. His visit turned into a three-year stay when he was offered a post as the first professor of zoology at the Tokyo Imperial University. He went on to recommend several fellow Americans as o-yatoi gaikokujin (foreign advisors) to support the modernization of Japan in the Meiji Era. To collect specimens, he established a marine biological laboratory at Enoshima in Kanagawa Prefecture.<ref name="Howard1935"/>

While looking out of a window on a train between Yokohama and Tokyo, Morse discovered the Ōmori shell mound, the excavation of which opened the study in archaeology and anthropology in Japan and shed much light on the material culture of prehistoric Japan.<ref name="Morse1879">Template:Cite journal</ref> He returned to Japan in 1882–3 to present a report of his findings to Tokyo Imperial University.<ref name="Howard1935"/>

Morse had much interest in Japanese ceramics, making a collection of over 5,000 pieces of Japanese pottery.<ref>Maine Historical Society </ref> On his 1882-3 visit to Japan he collected clay samples as well as finished ceramics. He devised the term "cord-marked" for the sherds of Stone Age pottery, decorated by impressing cords into the wet clay. The Japanese translation, "Jōmon," now gives its name to the whole Jōmon period as well as Jōmon pottery.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> He brought back to Boston a collection amassed by government minister and amateur art collector Ōkuma Shigenobu, who donated it to Morse in recognition of his services to Japan. These now form part of the "Morse Collection" of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The catalogue<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> is a monumental work, and still the only major work of its kind in English.<ref name="Martin1995"/> His collection of daily artifacts of the Japanese people is kept at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. The remainder of the collection was inherited by his granddaughter, Catharine Robb Whyte via her mother Edith Morse Robb and is housed at the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, Banff, Alberta, Canada.

He travelled several times to the Far East which inspired several books, with his own illustrations. Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings was published in 1885; On the Older Forms of Terra-cotta Roofing Tiles in 1892; Latrines of the East in 1893; Glimpses of China and Chinese Homes in 1903; and Japan Day by Day in 1917. {{#invoke:Gallery|gallery}}

Massachusetts

Morse examining pottery, circa 1920

After leaving Japan, Morse traveled to Southeast Asia and Europe. In subsequent years, he returned to Europe, and Japan in quest of pottery.<ref name="Martin1995"/>

In 1886 Morse became president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.<ref name="Dall1926"/> He became Keeper of Pottery at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1890. He was also a director of the Peabody Academy of Science (now part of and succeeded by the Peabody Essex Museum) in Salem<ref>Grimes, John R., "Curiosity, Cabinets, and Knowledge" Template:Webarchive, pem.org, p. 4. Retrieved September 20, 2016.</ref><ref name="Kingsley1926"/><ref name="Martin1995"/> from 1880 to 1914. In 1898, he was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun (3rd class) by the Japanese government.<ref name="Kingsley1926"/><ref name=Gould2009/> He was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1898.<ref>American Antiquarian Society Members Directory</ref> He became chairman of the Boston Museum in 1914, and chairman of the Peabody Museum in 1915. He was awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasures (2nd class) by the Japanese government in 1922.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Morse was a friend of astronomer Percival Lowell, who inspired interest in the planet Mars. Morse would occasionally journey to the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, during optimal viewing times to observe the planet. In 1906, Morse published Mars and Its Mystery in defense of Lowell's controversial speculations regarding the possibility of life on Mars.<ref name="Martin1995"/>

He donated over 10,000 books from his personal collection to the Tokyo Imperial University. On learning that the library of the Tokyo Imperial University was reduced to ashes by the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake, in his will he ordered that his entire remaining collection of books be donated to Tokyo Imperial University.Template:Citation needed

Morse's last paper, on shell-mounds, was published in 1925.<ref name="Morse1925">Template:Cite journal</ref> He died at his home in Salem, Massachusetts in December of that year, of cerebral hemorrhage. He was buried at the Harmony Grove Cemetery.<ref name="Martin1995"/>

Morse's Law

In 1872, Morse noticed that mammals and reptiles with reduced fingers lose them from the sides in a particular order, beginning with the thumb and then the little finger.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Later researchers revealed that this is a general pattern in tetrapods (except Theropoda and Urodela): digits are reduced in the order I → V → II → III → IV, the reverse order of their appearance in embryogenesis. This trend is known as Morse's Law.<ref name=Young_2011/>

Published works

See also

References

Glottidia pyramidata, a living brachiopod, from Morse (1902)<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Template:Reflist

Further reading

Template:Commons category Template:Wikisource

Template:Presidents of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Template:Authority control

Retrieved from "https://wiki.sarg.dev/index.php?title=Edward_S._Morse&oldid=508552"