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Les premiers pas d'un naturaliste sur les sentiers du Wurtemberg : récit inédit d'un jeune étudiant nommé Georges Cuvier

Philippe TAQUET

fr Geodiversitas 20 (2) - Pages 285-318

Published on 07 July 1998

The first steps of a naturalist on the paths of wurtemberg: unpublished relation of a young student called Georges Cuvier

From April 20th to 28th 1788, three young students from the Caroline University of Wurtemberg were hiking from Stuttgart to Tübingen, making a botanic, entomologic and geologic excursion through the Souab Alps. Among them was a young naturalist called Georges Cuvier, then eighteen years old. Cuvier was in charge of writing the story of this small expedition. The text he prepared shows the mind of a young and brilliant student who completed his text with drawings and one water-colour. Several drafts, probably four, of this story must have existed. The text published here is the French translation of the German document preserved in the archives of the Institut de France. This document is undoubtly the first text of a young naturalist who became one of the most famous figures of Science during the nineteenth century.


Keywords:

history of science, travel, Wurtemberg, Germany

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