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Lunar Society Moonstones
The ''Moonstones'' () are a set of nine carved sandstone memorials to various members of the Lunar Society. Made in 1998, and unveiled in March 1999, they can be viewed in the grounds of the Asda supermarket in Queslett, Great Barr, Birmingham, England. They are visible from the highway, when travelling from Aldridge Road into Queslett Road, toward the Scott Arms, and face outwards from the supermarket. They depict nine members of the Society and attributes connected with their work, in order from Aldridge Road round to Queslett Road: *Josiah Wedgwood: portrait and three women from a jasperware design * Erasmus Darwin: portrait and design for horizontal windmill * Samuel Galton: colour wheel *William Murdock: steam road locomotive *Matthew Boulton: medal with his portrait * James Watt: portrait and steam engine *Joseph Priestley: laboratory equipment *James Keir: crystals *William Withering: foxglove, with words from his book ''An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) because they are the most resistant minerals to weathering processes at the Earth's surface. Like uncemented sand, sandstone may be any color due to impurities within the minerals, but the most common colors are tan, brown, yellow, red, grey, pink, white, and black. Since sandstone beds often form highly visible cliffs and other topographic features, certain colors of sandstone have been strongly identified with certain regions. Rock formations that are primarily composed of sandstone usually allow the percolation of water and other fluids and are porous enough to store large quantities, making them valuable aquifers and petroleum reservoirs. Quartz-bearing sandstone can be changed into quartzite through metamorphism, usually related to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Matthew Boulton
Matthew Boulton (; 3 September 172817 August 1809) was an English manufacturer and business partner of Scottish engineer James Watt. In the final quarter of the 18th century, the partnership installed hundreds of Boulton & Watt steam engines, which were a great advance on the state of the art, making possible the mechanisation of factories and mills. Boulton applied modern techniques to the minting of coins, striking millions of pieces for Britain and other countries, and supplying the Royal Mint with up-to-date equipment. Born in Birmingham, he was the son of a Birmingham manufacturer of small metal products who died when Boulton was 31. By then Boulton had managed the business for several years, and thereafter expanded it considerably, consolidating operations at the Soho Manufactory, built by him near Birmingham. At Soho, he adopted the latest techniques, branching into silver plate, ormolu and other decorative arts. He became associated with James Watt when Watt's bus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lunar Society Of Birmingham
The Lunar Society of Birmingham was a British dinner club and informal learned society of prominent figures in the Midlands Enlightenment, including industrialists, natural philosophers and intellectuals, who met regularly between 1765 and 1813 in Birmingham. At first called the Lunar Circle, "Lunar Society" became the formal name by 1775. The name arose because the society would meet during the full moon, as the extra light made the journey home easier and safer in the absence of street lighting. The members cheerfully referred to themselves as ''"lunaticks"'', a pun on lunatics. Venues included Erasmus Darwin's home in Lichfield, Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, Bowbridge House in Derbyshire, and Great Barr Hall. Membership and status The Lunar Society evolved through various degrees of organisation over a period of up to fifty years, but was only ever an informal group. No constitution, minutes, publications or membership lists survive from any period, and evidence of its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science And Invention In Birmingham
Birmingham is one of England's principal industrial centres and has a history of industrial and scientific innovation. It was once known as ' city of a thousand trades' and in 1791, Arthur Young (the writer and commentator on British economic life) described Birmingham as "the first manufacturing town in the world". Right up until the mid-19th century Birmingham was regarded as the prime industrial urban town in Britain and perhaps the world, the town's rivals were more specific in their trade bases. Mills and foundries across the world were helped along by the advances in steam power and engineering that were taking place in the city. The town offered a vast array of industries and was the world's leading manufacturer of metal ware, although this was by no means the only trade flourishing in the town. By the year 2000, of the 4,000 inventions copyrighted annually in the UK, 2,800 came from within a 35-mile radius of Birmingham. Peter Colegate of the Patent Office stated that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Barr Hall
Great Barr Hall is an 18th-century mansion situated at Pheasey, Walsall, on the border with Great Barr, Birmingham, West Midlands, England. It has associations with the Lunar Society and is a Grade II listed building. It is, however, in a very poor state of repair and is on the Buildings at Risk Register. History The Scotts In the mid-17th century, Richard Scott acquired the house then standing on the site and known as Nether House. In about 1777, Joseph Scott (later Sir Joseph Scott, 1st Baronet Scott of Great Barr) replaced the old house with a two-storey, nine-bay mansion in the Strawberry Hill Gothic Revival style. The house was much altered and extended about 1840 and in 1863, an adjacent chapel (which was never consecrated) was erected to a design probably of architect George Gilbert Scott, a friend – but not a relation – of Sir Francis Scott. Two of the extant lodge houses are believed to be by George Gilbert Scott. Outside the chapel are the burial plots of sever ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steve Field (sculptor)
Stephen (Steve) Field RBSA (born 3 May 1954 in Saltash, Cornwall) is an English sculptor, muralist and mosaicist, active mainly in the West Midlands, particularly the Black Country, where a number of his works are on public display. He has been resident artist and public art adviser to Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council, since 1988, and is a member of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, the Contemporary Glass Society and the British Association of Modern Mosaic. He coordinated Dudley's Millennium Sculpture Trail. He studied at the University of Sheffield, earning a degree in architecture, and Wolverhampton Polytechnic, where he achieved a master's degree in fine art. He cites his influences as futurism and vorticism, the sculptor Walter Ritchie, his MPhil examiner David Harding, and the Mexican muralists. In 1978 he painted a series of three murals on the gable ends of terraced houses at the eastern end of Heathfield Road, Handsworth, Birmingham, in conjunction with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Full Moon
The full moon is the lunar phase when the Moon appears fully illuminated from Earth's perspective. This occurs when Earth is located between the Sun and the Moon (when the ecliptic coordinate system, ecliptic longitudes of the Sun and Moon opposition (astronomy), differ by 180°). This means that the lunar hemisphere facing Earth—the near side of the Moon, near side—is completely sunlit and appears as an approximately circular disk. The full moon occurs roughly once a month. The time interval between a full moon and the next repetition of the same phase, a Lunar month#Synodic month, synodic month, averages about 29.53 days. Therefore, in those lunar calendars in which each month begins on the day of the new moon, the full moon falls on either the 14th or 15th day of the lunar month. Because a calendar month consists of a Natural number, whole number of days, a month in a lunar calendar may be either 29 or 30 days long. Characteristics A full moon is often thought of as an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Foxglove
''Digitalis'' ( or ) is a genus of about 20 species of herbaceous plant, herbaceous perennial plants, shrubs, and Biennial plant, biennials, commonly called foxgloves. ''Digitalis'' is native to Europe, western Asia, and northwestern Africa. The flowers are tubular in shape, produced on a tall spike, and vary in colour with species, from purple to pink, white, and yellow. The scientific name means "finger". The genus was traditionally placed in the figwort family (biology), family, Scrophulariaceae, but phylogenetic research led taxonomists to move it to the Veronicaceae in 2001. More recent phylogenetic work has placed it in the much enlarged family Plantaginaceae. The best-known species is the common foxglove, ''Digitalis purpurea''. This biennial is often grown as an ornamental plant due to its vivid flowers which range in colour from various purple tints through pink and purely white. The flowers can also possess various marks and spottings. Other garden-worthy species ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Withering
William Withering FRS (17 March 1741 – 6 October 1799) was an English botanist, geologist, chemist, physician and first systematic investigator of the bioactivity of digitalis. Withering was born in Wellington, Shropshire, the son of a surgeon. He trained as a physician and studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh Medical School. He worked at Birmingham General Hospital from 1779. The story is that he noticed a person with dropsy (swelling from congestive heart failure) improve remarkably after taking a traditional herbal remedy; Withering became famous for recognising that the active ingredient in the mixture came from the foxglove plant. The active ingredient is now known as digoxin, after the plant's scientific name. In 1785, Withering published ''An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses'', which contained reports on clinical trials and notes on digitalis's effects and toxicity. Biography Born in England, Withering attended Edinburgh Medical School ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crystal
A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macroscopic single crystals are usually identifiable by their geometrical shape, consisting of flat faces with specific, characteristic orientations. The scientific study of crystals and crystal formation is known as crystallography. The process of crystal formation via mechanisms of crystal growth is called crystallization or solidification. The word ''crystal'' derives from the Ancient Greek word (), meaning both "ice" and "rock crystal", from (), "icy cold, frost". Examples of large crystals include snowflakes, diamonds, and table salt. Most inorganic solids are not crystals but polycrystals, i.e. many microscopic crystals fused together into a single solid. Polycrystals include most metals, rocks, ceramics, and ice. A third category of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Keir
James Keir FRS (20 September 1735 – 11 October 1820) was a Scottish chemist, geologist, industrialist, and inventor, and an important member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham. Life and work Keir was born in Stirlingshire, Scotland, in 1735 as the eighteenth child of John Keir and Magdaline Lind (aunt of James Lind). James attended the Royal High School, Edinburgh, and studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh where he met and formed a lasting friendship with Erasmus Darwin. At the age of 22, Keir joined the army and was commissioned into the 61st Regiment (now the Gloucestershire Regiment). During the seven years' war he was stationed with his regiment in the West Indies. He became lieutenant on, 31 March 1759, captain-lieutenant on 16 May 1766, and captain on 23 June of the same year. In the spring of 1768 he resigned his commission, being disappointed at not meeting with more sympathy in his studies from his brother-officers. He found, however, one congeni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laboratory
A laboratory (; ; colloquially lab) is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific or technological research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. Laboratory services are provided in a variety of settings: physicians' offices, clinics, hospitals, and regional and national referral centers. Overview The organisation and contents of laboratories are determined by the differing requirements of the specialists working within. A physics laboratory might contain a particle accelerator or vacuum chamber, while a metallurgy laboratory could have apparatus for casting or refining metals or for testing their strength. A chemist or biologist might use a wet laboratory, while a psychologist's laboratory might be a room with one-way mirrors and hidden cameras in which to observe behavior. In some laboratories, such as those commonly used by computer scientists, computers (sometimes supercomputers) are used for either simulations or the analysis of data. Scient ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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