I am totally astounded by what I read when I compare these two texts: Maria Graham's description of the coastal #uplift due to the 1822 #Valparaiso #earthquake, versus Charles Darwin's text on very similar phenomena related to the 1835 #Concepción earthquake.
Read carefully, paying attention to the expressions used. It's like if #Darwin borrowed Maria Graham's words, but also her interpretation about the accumulation of earthquakes raising the coast on the long term. 🤔
Any comment ?
Both 1822 and 1835 earthquakes happened in Central #Chile on the #subduction #megathrust between Nazca and South America #tectonic_plates. Darwin's description, based on Fitz Roy (Beagle's captain) observations, is considered as seminal.
Thanks @haq for pointing me to the work by Maria Graham.
@RobinLacassin This is complicated. Male-dominated English society (and most similar societies) had decided that it was shameful for a woman to be a public figure, and doubly shameful to be a public intellectual, so women's work was refused publication or published by male family members or published then "politely" ignored and uncredited if reused. We can assume Darwin was trying to be "polite" to Maria Graham by shielding her from public attention, or we can assumed he was stealing her work, or both - probably at least a little bit of both. Some women ignored this and suffered as public intellectuals, nicknamed "bluestockings", and some women lived through their male relatives but received small public rewards (e.g. Anne Phillips discovered Miss Phillips' Conglomerate, which is still named after her, but with her permission her brother John Phillips took credit for most of her discoveries).