Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms: Essays on Natural History.Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998) is the eighth volume of collected essays by the Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. The essays were culled from his monthly column "The View of Life" in Natural History : Essays on Natural History by Stephen Jay Gould Noun 1. Stephen Jay Gould - United States paleontologist and popularizer of science (1941-2002) Gould (New York: Harmony Books, 1998); 422 pp.; $25.00 cloth. Stephen Jay Gould's eighth book of essays is drawn from his previously published material in Natural History magazine and covers a wide range of topics. The title derives from two of the subjects discussed: Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks, in which he comments--long before Charles Darwin--about mountain-top discoveries of clam shells and other fossils; and Martin Luther's 1521 command appearance before the Holy Roman Empire's diet, which met periodically in the old German city of Worms to conduct its legislative business. Other essays include discussions of where Columbus first landed in the new world; Darwin; giraffes' necks; prehistory prehistory, period of human evolution before writing was invented and records kept. The term was coined by Daniel Wilson in 1851. It is followed by protohistory, the period for which we have some records but must still rely largely on archaeological evidence to cave art; the extinct and unattractive Dodo bird; the Irish elk's antlers antlers metaphorical decoration for deceived husband. [Western Folklore: Jobes, 395] See : Cuckoldry and hump; the sloth sloth (slōth, slôth), arboreal mammal found in Central and South America distantly related to armadillos and anteaters. Sloths live in tropical forests, where they sleep, eat, and travel through the trees suspended upside down, clinging to ; Martian canals; the defenestration that prompted the Thirty Years War Thirty Years War, 1618–48, general European war fought mainly in Germany. General Character of the War There were many territorial, dynastic, and religious issues that figured in the outbreak and conduct of the war. ; bacteria; and many other subjects. A professor of zoology and geology at Harvard and arguably one of today's leading proponents for and defenders of evolution, Gould writes essays that are fascinating, informative, and worthwhile reading. He frequently goes off on tangents, juxtaposes subjects never before so ordered, and starts most essays in what seems the opposite direction. But rather than being off-putting or making for difficult reading, these strange positionings, misdirections, and digressions tend to strengthen and enliven the stories with surprises and eye-opening findings. Consequently, there isn't a boring essay in the twenty-one published herein. For sheer stunning impact, essay nineteen, entitled "Triumph of the Root Heads," though odd-sounding, is a mindblower. It concerns a parasite--actually a barnacle barnacle, common name of the sedentary crustacean animals constituting the subclass Cirripedia. Barnacles are exclusively marine and are quite unlike any other crustacean because of the permanently attached, or sessile, mode of existence for which they are highly of sorts--that latches on to a crab, penetrates it, and converts the crab into a slave. Honest] There's also an essay about how fly larva larva, in zoology larva, independent, immature animal that undergoes a profound change, or metamorphosis, to assume the typical adult form. Larvae occur in almost all of the animal phyla; because most are tiny or microscopic, they are rarely seen. eat toads! Gould says: These essays probe, arrange, join, and parry the details within a diverse forest of data, located both in nature and in the documents of human struggle--all to access an inherently confusing but infinitely compelling world. Warning: reading this book may, and probably will, make you want to go back and read the author's previous works. Jim Sullivan is the former director of the Northern Indiana Historical Society and a full-time freelance writer. |
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