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| November rainbow |
November weather finally arrived: wet, cold and grey with a touch of frost and snow. Up until this past week we have had almost idyllic weather all summer and most of the fall, but it had to come to an end sometime. Meanwhile western Canada has been hit by phenomenally bad weather: a summer heatdome, lots of forest fires, and now intense rain, wind and flooding. A once-in-a-lifetime Very Bad Year weather-wise. But here we had an awesome year. I don't often use that word, awesome, but it applies this time.
Locally we're seeing a surge in Covid cases and deaths, thanks in part to "faith" gatherings where the participants did not see fit to follow Covid health guidelines. One pastor had the gall to comment that the subsequent deaths were unfortunate but just part of God's plan. Initially the provincial government was lenient, saying that they were more focussed on education than enforcement, but apparently the God's plan comment put our premier over the edge. When the powers-that-be give you a pass you don't go all smug about it.
Some participants in the gathering thought they were adhering to the guidelines, that since church services do not require vaccination passports being checked, therefore a much larger gathering involving many hundreds of participants from far and away should also be allowed to go maskless and passportless. Dr. Strang said that was not so and the guidelines were clear about that. However, I will say that when I checked the guidelines with respect to another gathering I was involved in, the guidelines were not clear at all. I came away wondering what exactly was supposed to happen. So I will give the organizers of that faith gathering a little benefit of doubt on that score, but the God's plan comment was kind of over the top.
The other gathering I attended was the first in-person meeting since before the pandemic of an organization I belong to. I went to it just because I was thinking I'd get to see some people I hadn't seen in that long since I haven't been attending Zoom meetings. Apparently at least half the membership was thinking the same thing and so there were many more people in attendance than had been planned for. Where we usually got a dozen or maybe a couple dozen attendees in the before times, I am sure well in excess of 50-70 people showed up at this meeting. Passports were checked and everyone wore masks, but at a certain point the president of the club suggested that people could take their masks off. I thought, Nothing doing, mask stays put. I'd only just gotten my 'flu shot and didn't want to chance even getting a bit of 'flu.
We had a speaker that night as we usually do and her topic was the story of Abraham Gesner. You may or may not be aware that Gesner invented kerosene, and that he grew up not far from my town in Nova Scotia. I only knew that because there is a country road intersection with a stop sign not too far from town where there is a monument and plaque honouring him. It's kind of out in the middle of nowhere, the monument stands at the edge of a farm field. Every time I stopped at that intersection, which is not frequently but maybe once a year or so, I wondered who the heck is this guy. Well, now I know.
Our speaker was a retired history professor who has written a book about Mr. Gesner and she had a lot to say about him. So much so that she went overtime and people were fidgeting and growing quite restless long before she finished. A vice-president finally stepped up and told her that time had run out. It was an unfortunate end to an otherwise interesting talk.
Briefly, Gesner grew up on a farm in the early 1800s but was not in the least talented at farming. He met and courted a young woman who was the daughter of a prominent physician, and the prospective father-in-law encouraged young Abraham to get trained as a doctor, since it was obvious he would never be able to support his daughter by farming. Abraham ended up going to London England for his medical training. In those days medical training was a loosey goosey affair, Abraham took a variety of courses including geology. It turned out that his real passion was for geology, not medicine or farming. Nevertheless he completed his medical training and returned to Canada to practice medicine in New Brunswick. He made lots of home visits around the countryside since that is what doctors used to do, and on his travels he collected rocks. Lots of rocks. Eventually he switched careers to become a geological surveyer and then his travels expanded to almost the entire province of New Brunswick.
Unfortunately Mr Gesner ran into trouble advising the province that they had coal deposits suitable for mining when in fact the deposits were entirely unsuitable. He lost his job. He experimented with liquefying coal to use as a replacement for whale oil in street lamps. He was eventually successful and came up with kerosene ("coal oil"). He opened a factory in New England for the manufacture of kerosene but ran into business trouble and was sued multiple times. I don't know the details but I rather gather it was bad luck, ignorance and the highly competitive market that he was operating in that was his downfall. He returned penniless to Nova Scotia. He did manage to secure a job teaching at Dalhousie College in Halifax, but before he could take it up he died, in his early 60s.
Nowadays kerosene is made from petroleum but Gesner's process of converting coal to kerosene saved a lot of whales. It was in fact the beginning of the end for the lucrative 'Boston coast' whaling industry. That industry revived somewhat when it was realized that whalebone was very useful in women's undergarments (corsets and such), but kerosene was definitely the first nail in that coffin.
Gesner firmly believed that the Earth was only a few thousand years old, as Bishop Usher had proven through his biblical studies. He was not to be deterred, he argued firmly in the defense of a youngish Earth. However towards the end of his career and studies he came to admit that perhaps it was not so, perhaps the Earth was millions of years old. I admire that he defended his beliefs so vigourously but in the end changed his mind in the face of overwhelming evidence. He was scientifically inclined and willing to change his mind with enough evidence for doing so. He died before Charles Darwin published his Origin of Species but the writing was already on the wall with the revelations of geological strata associated with a progression of fossils toward modern species. Darwin's big discovery was not so much about evolution but the natural mechanisms facilitating evolution.
Briefly, Gesner grew up on a farm in the early 1800s but was not in the least talented at farming. He met and courted a young woman who was the daughter of a prominent physician, and the prospective father-in-law encouraged young Abraham to get trained as a doctor, since it was obvious he would never be able to support his daughter by farming. Abraham ended up going to London England for his medical training. In those days medical training was a loosey goosey affair, Abraham took a variety of courses including geology. It turned out that his real passion was for geology, not medicine or farming. Nevertheless he completed his medical training and returned to Canada to practice medicine in New Brunswick. He made lots of home visits around the countryside since that is what doctors used to do, and on his travels he collected rocks. Lots of rocks. Eventually he switched careers to become a geological surveyer and then his travels expanded to almost the entire province of New Brunswick.
Unfortunately Mr Gesner ran into trouble advising the province that they had coal deposits suitable for mining when in fact the deposits were entirely unsuitable. He lost his job. He experimented with liquefying coal to use as a replacement for whale oil in street lamps. He was eventually successful and came up with kerosene ("coal oil"). He opened a factory in New England for the manufacture of kerosene but ran into business trouble and was sued multiple times. I don't know the details but I rather gather it was bad luck, ignorance and the highly competitive market that he was operating in that was his downfall. He returned penniless to Nova Scotia. He did manage to secure a job teaching at Dalhousie College in Halifax, but before he could take it up he died, in his early 60s.
Nowadays kerosene is made from petroleum but Gesner's process of converting coal to kerosene saved a lot of whales. It was in fact the beginning of the end for the lucrative 'Boston coast' whaling industry. That industry revived somewhat when it was realized that whalebone was very useful in women's undergarments (corsets and such), but kerosene was definitely the first nail in that coffin.
Gesner firmly believed that the Earth was only a few thousand years old, as Bishop Usher had proven through his biblical studies. He was not to be deterred, he argued firmly in the defense of a youngish Earth. However towards the end of his career and studies he came to admit that perhaps it was not so, perhaps the Earth was millions of years old. I admire that he defended his beliefs so vigourously but in the end changed his mind in the face of overwhelming evidence. He was scientifically inclined and willing to change his mind with enough evidence for doing so. He died before Charles Darwin published his Origin of Species but the writing was already on the wall with the revelations of geological strata associated with a progression of fossils toward modern species. Darwin's big discovery was not so much about evolution but the natural mechanisms facilitating evolution.
I think I find this man interesting because he tried his hand at a number of different things, some successful and some not, and he loved exploring. He was training in England at the start of the Industrial Revolution and very interested in the potential for change it portended. He came back home to Canada fired up about the possibilities and in the end he made a contribution. As I said, he saved a few whales and provided an affordable source of light before electricity became the norm. Having myself depended on kerosene for light at a certain period of my life, I think that is notable.
1 comment:
Fascinating story, Annie, thanks for sharing it.
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