John Fleming (naturalist)

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Prof John Fleming's grave, Dean Cemetery

John Fleming

FRS FSA (10 January 1785 – 18 November 1857) was a Scottish Free Church minister, naturalist, zoologist and geologist. He named and described several species of mollusc. During his life he tried to reconcile theology
with science.

Fleming Fjord in Greenland was named after him.[1]

Life

Fleming was born on Kirkroads Farm near

Wernerian Society, a learned society devoted to the study of natural history
.

Fleming became a member of the

Royal Society of London on 25 February 1813 (he was not granted fellowship). In 1814, he was awarded an honorary doctorate of divinity by the University of St Andrews, and in the same year he became a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers for the latter were John Playfair, David Brewster and Robert Jameson.[4]

He was awarded the chair of natural philosophy (physics) at the

Edinburgh Botanical Society (1847–48, 1849–50 and 1856–57).[5] He was then living at 22 Walker Street in Edinburgh's West End.[6]

He died at home, Seagrove House in Leith[7] and is buried with his family in the western half of Dean Cemetery in Edinburgh. He is buried with his wife, Melville Christie (1796–1862) and son Andrew Fleming (1821–1901) (also a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh) who rose to be Depute Surgeon General of the Indian Army.

Career

Fleming was a vitalist who was strongly opposed to materialism. He believed that a 'vital principle' was inherent in the embryo with the capacity of "developing in succession the destined plan of existence."[8] He was a close associate of Robert Edmond Grant, who considered that the same laws of life affected all organisms.

In 1824, Fleming became involved in a famous controversy with the geologist William Buckland about the nature of the flood as described in the Bible. In 1828, he published his History of British Animals. This book addressed both extant and fossil species. It explained the presence of fossils by climate change, suggesting that extinct species would have survived if weather conditions had been favorable. These theories contributed to the advancement of biogeography and exerted some influence on Charles Darwin. Flemings' comments on instinct in his book Philosophy of Zoology had influenced Darwin.[9]

In 1831, Fleming found some fossils which he recognized as fish in the Old Red Sandstone units at Fife. This did not fit the generally accepted notion that the Earth was approximately 6,000 years old.

Works

Described taxa

The standard author abbreviation Fleming is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.[10]
  • Superfamily: Conoidea Fleming, 1822
  • Family: Conidae Fleming, 1822
  • Subfamily:
    Coninae
    Fleming, 1822

Species in the phylum Mollusca described by Fleming:

References

  1. ^ "Catalogue of place names in northern East Greenland". Geological Survey of Denmark. Retrieved 12 August 2019.
  2. ISBN 0-902-198-84-X. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on 24 January 2013. Retrieved 9 May 2016.
  3. ^ Ewing, William Annals of the Free Church
  4. ISBN 0-902-198-84-X. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on 24 January 2013. Retrieved 9 May 2016.
  5. ^ THE BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH 1836-1936 (PDF). p. 15. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 March 2017. Retrieved 11 August 2018.
  6. ^ Edinburgh Post Office Directory 1850
  7. ^ Edinburgh and Leith Post Office Directory 1857
  8. ^ Corsi, Pietro. (1978). The Importance of French Transformist Ideas for the Second Volume of Lyell's Principles of Geology. The British Journal for the History of Science 11 (3) 221-244.
  9. ISBN 0-226-71200-1
  10. ^ International Plant Names Index.  Fleming.

External links

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