A who’s who of scientists in the 1880s

June 24, 2012

Just to ensure there isn’t a complete absence of posts in June – a quick update.

My ‘project’ for the month has been a road trip via outback Queensland to the Northern Territory: the dinosaur stampede footprints at Lark Quarry; Kakadu National Park; several days digging up and retrieving abandoned fishing nets on the beaches of the Cobourg Peninsula (with Conservation Volunteers Australia – highly recommended, especially since the accommodation is at Seven Spirit Bay Resort); a few days as guests of a community in Arnhem Land; drifting along hot springs at Mataranka; hundreds of thousands of water birds (brolgas, jabirus, pelicans, cormorants, grebes, ducks etc) at a waterhole near Elliott.

But tonight, we are camped by the Jordan River at Jericho (would you believe), in the Central Highlands of Queensland. And the remarkable thing about Jericho is that all of its streets are named after scientists. Now Jericho was founded in the mid 1880s, and it’s interesting to reflect on the scientists who must have been regarded as influential at the time. These are the street names, all nine of them:

Darwin (the main street), Pasteur, Tyndall, Davy, Huxley, Edison, Faraday, Bessemer, Lyon

I have to admit that Lyon has me stumped. Does anyone have any clues?