New layer incorporated into Jacques Huber's Expeditions Maps

During his extensive travels, Jacques Huber not only maintained field notebooks but also actively corresponded with his family, particularly his wife, Sophie Huber-Müller, and professional colleagues, such as Emil Goeldi, the director of the Museu Paraense. 

Jacques Huber notebook from Ucayali River - Peru (1898)

Letter to Sophie Huber-Müller - Purus Expedition (1904)

These documents serve as invaluable records of Huber's daily experiences and the challenges he encountered during his expeditions. Moreover, they constitute significant resources for the study of construction of botanical knowledge in the field, shedding light on the diverse actors involved in this process - such as indigenous peoples.

As part of the "Visual Cartography of Jacques Huber's Botanical Collections" project, we have transcribed and translated excerpts from these letters and notebooks. These insights have been integrated into the expeditions maps under a new layer named "Notes."

You can access these maps in the Expeditions section. Navigate through the layers to view specific information or overlay them to have a contextualized perspective of Huber's journeys.

Lucas Monteiro de Araújo

Visual cartography of Jacques Huber’s botanical collections

Jacques Huber (1867-1914) made nearly 40 trips during his time in Brazil (from 1895 to 1914). Besides the scientific output of these expeditions, Huber was a pioneer in the use of photography in the field. His journeys through the Amazon, Northeastern Brazil, and the Far-Orient, resulted valuable documents like diaries and photographs that are preserved at the Goeldi Museum and the Cantonal Archive of the City of Basel, Switzerland. 

State of Ceará (1897)

Purus River (1904)

Jacques Huber kept several diaries while in the field. These diaries not only documented the day-to-day activities of the expedition, but also featured numerous landscapes and portraits of the people he encountered. Both visual records (photos and drawings) contribute to a novel perspective on the Brazilian environment and biodiversity, while serving as relevant sources for understanding the context of Huber’s expeditions.

View from Paca, Ucayali River (1898)

Shipibos that Huber met in Ucayali River (1898)

In the posdoctoral project titled “Visual cartography of Jacques Huber’s botanical collections”, conducted at the Goeldi Museum, we retraced Huber’s steps in three of his trips: the state of Ceará (1897), the Ucayali River (1898), and the Purus River (1904). The objective was to identify the places the botanist visited, the photographs and drawings he made, and the collections he gathered.

One of the results is presented in three maps (added to the “Expeditions” section), in which viewers may access the aforementioned information and cross-reference it for different perspectives of Huber’s journeys.

Lucas Monteiro de Araújo

Visit to Schleitheim

Jacques Huber was born in the 13th of October 1867 in Schleitheim, Kanton Schaffhausen, a small and lovely village on the border between Switzerland and Germany. His father, the Minister (Pfarrer) Johann Rudolf Emanuel Huber (1835-1914), and mother Sophie Catherine Vetter (1835-1927) lived with their family in this village until 1869, then moving to the city of Schaffhausen.

On the 31st of August 2014 we visited the village and its Archives and Museum Schleitheimertal. Both are managed by Mr. Willi Bächtold with extreme zeal and competence. We learned a lot in these well organized institutions. We thank to Mr. Bächtold for his warm welcome and support.

At the Gemeindearchiv we have checked the first records of Huber's life: his birth record made by the midwife (Hebamme) Fida Pletscher and the baptism record 14 days after his birth. To know more about the Gemeindearchiv Schleitheim, please click here.

 

 

The Reformed Church in Schleitheim, where the father of Jacques Huber, Pfarrer Johannes Rudolf Emanuel Huber, was the Vicar until 1869.

The Pfarrhaus in Schleitheim, where Jacques Huber probably spent his first years of life.

The Museum Schleitheimertal is located in an ancient school. Nowadays the building is the place where the history of the village is well presented and preserved.

Ms. Mürra Zabel, Mr. Nelson Sanjad and Mr. Willi Bächtold, Gemeindearchiv Schleitheim, August 2014.

Birth record of Jacques Huber by the midwife Fida Pletscher (sixth line).

Baptism record of Jacques (Jakobus) Huber on October 27, 1867 (seventh line).

Jacques Huber's oeuvre updated

Some works of Jacques Huber were recently discovered at the Staatsarchiv des Kantons Basel-Stadt: six popular science texts and one important report on the International Exhibition of Turin held in 1911. Currently are recorded 106 published works. Please, check the updated numbers below.

To access the complete list of Huber’s works, please click here. All the references were checked (only two missing among 106). It is possible to find more works in Brazilian and European newspapers and magazines. If you find some mistake or have more information to improve the list, please contact us using the form on the right.

These data are part of an ongoing research. Please, strictly observe the laws of copyright and the correct standards to quote or refer to this blog.


Table 1. Category of the works published by J. Huber.

Publication	Quantity
Scientific articles/works in journals	54
Popular science works	17
Short communications	14
Reports	11
Books	5
Annals	4
Map	1
Total	106

Table 2. Journals where J. Huber published.

Journals	Quantity
Boletim do Museu Paraense de Historia Natural e Ethnographia (Brazil)	30
Bulletin de l'Herbier Boissier (Switzerland)	5
Bulletin de la Société Botanique de France (France)	3
Botanisches Centralblatt (Germany)	2
Journal de Botanique (France)	2
Annales des Sciences Naturelles, Septième Série, Botanique (France)	1
Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution (United States)	1
Archives des Sciences Physiques et Naturelles (Switzerland)	1
Berichte der Schweizerischen Botanischen Gesellschaft (Switzerland)	1
Biologischen Centralblatt (Germany)	1
Bulletin de la Société Botanique de Genève (Switzerland)	2
Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires des Séances de l’Académie des Sciences (France)	1
Dr. A. Petermann‘s Mitteilungen aus Justus Perthes‘ Geographischer Anstalt (Germany)	1
La Géographie (France)	1
Le Globe (Switzerland)	1
Revue des Cultures Coloniales (France)	1
Total	54

  

Survey at the University of Montpellier 2, France

The Archives and the Herbarium of the Institute of Botany (IB), University of Montpellier 2, France, were surveyed from the 4th to 6th of June. The IB was founded in 1890 by Charles Flahault (1852-1935). It preserves documents related to his work at the University, as well as his manuscripts and publications.

Institute of Botany, University of Montpellier 2, in the 1930s. This building was replaced by a new and much bigger one in 1959.

According to the lists of foreigners students in the University of Montpellier, organized by Flahault, Jacques Huber studied at the Faculty of Sciences from 1890 to 1893, and was Assistant (Préparateur) in the Laboratory of the Institute of Botany from June 1892 until his traveling to Geneva in 1893. In the first semester of 1893, Huber was responsible for training the students in "Practical works" (Travaux pratiques) at the Laboratory. He became part of the staff of the Botany course, among Charles Flahault, Fernand Jadin, Maurice Granel, Louis Planchon, and Lucien Courchet.

"Etudiants étrangers à Montpellier (Semestre d'hiver 1890-91)", by Charles Flahault.

Detail of the list above: Swiss and Brazilian students in Montpellier (1890-1891).

"Liste des Etudiants étrangers des différents Facultés ou Ecoles de Montpellier - Année scolaire 1892-93 - Semestre d'hiver", by Charles Flahault.

Detail of the list above: foreigners students in the Faculty of Sciences of Montpellier (1892-1893).

"Service des cours pendant le semestre d'été (16 mars - 15 juillet)", by Charles Flahault. Huber's classes took place on Monday and Tuesday.

While studying in Montpellier, Huber was subsidized by the Comité de Patronage des Étudiants Étrangers à Montpellier and by the Union Franklin, which was founded by Charles Flahault "en vue d'assurer des conditions de vie matérielle modestes et pourtant hygièniques aux étudiants de Montpellier...".

Foreigners students who lived at the Maison Rigal in June 1893, payed by the Comité de Patronage des Étudiants Étrangers à Montpellier. Among them, Jacques Huber.

List of teachers and students of the University of Montpellier subsidized by the Union Franklin from November 1892 to July 1893. Among them, Flahault and Huber.

We thank to Mrs. Véronique Bourgade and Noémie Miralles-Aumasson, from the Pôle Patrimoine scientifique de l'Université Montpellier 2, for their support and kindness.

We also thank to Dr. Caroline Loup, Curator of the Herbarium MPU, for the interlocution and for helping with Huber's types.

Find more information in this blog about the Archives and Herbarium of the Institute of Botany (UM2), as well as the Jardin des Plantes de Montpellier.

To know more about the history of the University of Montpellier 2, please click here, and the Institute of Botany (UM2), click here.

Présence de Charles Flahault

Curiously, one of the most important French scientists, Charles Flahault (1852-1935), whose work is essential to modern Botany and Plant Ecology, has been little studied so far. One can find good chapters about his work in general histories of Ecology, like those written by Donald Worster, Pascal Acot, Jean-Marc Drouin, Jean-Paul Deléage, and Patrick Matagne, but not an intellectual biography or an extensive analyses of his work and papers.

In order to fill this gap, Marie-France Flahault is colleting documents and researching about her second cousin for 15 years. She is the president of the Association "Présence de Charles Flahault", which has organized an exhibition in many cities and promoted the documentary "Aigoual, la forêt retrouvée" (Marc Khanne, 2007) about the partnership of Georges Fabre and Charles Flahault for reforestation of 16,000 hectares in northern Montpellier (nowadays in Cévennes National Park).

The exhibition "Flahault, grandeur Nature" will be released in Mont Aigoual, France, next July 4, 2014.

To know more about Charles Flahault and the Association "Présence de Charles Flahault", we suggest the following links:

"Herborisations en zigzag: journal d'un botaniste - Suède-Laponie (1879)/Région méditerranéenne (1887-1896)" (documents réunis et présentés par J.-M. Emberger)
Photothèque Flahault (developed by the University of Montpellier 2)
À la recherche des écrits de Flahault (Tela Botanica)
Testimony of Marie-France Flahault on the exhibition (WebTV UM2)

We thank to Marie-France Flahault for her kindness and the cooperation with our research on Jacques Huber, who was a student and worked with Charles Flahault from 1890 to 1893.

Jardin des Plantes de Montpellier, France

Following the steps of Jacques Huber, we visited the Jardin des Plantes in Montpellier, southern France, in early June. Huber lived in Montpellier from 1890 to 1893, where he attended classes at the local university. He witnessed the foundation of the Institute of Botany by Charles Flahault (1852-1935) in 1890, and later worked as his research assistant. The Institute of Botany was built next to the Jardin des Plantes and since then have shared its space. Huber left Montpellier after finishing his Doctoral Thesis in 1893. He moved to Geneva, Switzerland, in the same year.

The 'Jardin du Roy' was founded by Pierre Richer de Belleval (c. 1564-1632) in 1593 to serve the education of physicians and pharmacists. It is still possible to appreciate the ruins of that first garden, one of the oldest in Europe (please, see the pictures bellow). The garden keeps a great collection of plants, especially from the Mediterranean region. Currently, the garden is still maintained by the Faculty of Medicine, University of Montpellier I in association with the city of Montpellier.

To know more about the Jardin des Plantes and the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Montpellier 2, to which the Institute of Botany is now linked, we suggest the following books:

ROSSI, Michel (Ed.), 2013. De la médicine à la botanique: le Jardin des Plantes de Montpellier. Versailles, Éditions Quae. (twelve chapters by different authors, with excellent pictures of Jonathan Lhoir).

GOMEL, Luc (Ed.), 2014. De la faculté des sciences à l'Université Montpellier 2: les sciences et techniques en mouvement. Montpellier, UM2. (written by Noémie Aumasson-Miralles, Flore César and Nicolas Chevassus-au-Louis).

 

 

 

Huge diversity of forms, colours, textures, and perfumes: 
the Jardin des Plantes de Montpellier in spring!