Seeking Natural Knowledge in Later 17th Century England : Robert Plot, the Ashmolean Museum, and the Oxford Philosophical Society

Anthony Turner offers a view of the social and cultural context of the collecting of natural history in late 17th century England, constructed around the biography of Robert Plot.Seeking Natural Knowledge in Later 17th Century England seeks in particular to show the continuing intrinsic connection between chorography, antiquarianism, natural history and even, though to a lesser degree, applied mathematics, and the interest of such matters for the University of Oxford.An introductory chapter places chorography in its European cosmological context before looking at details of its study - in both its antiquarian and practical aspects - in Early Modern England, and the methods by which it was pursued there.Parallels are drawn with similar activity in France and Germany. In the following chapters, through an account of the work of Robert Plot, the way in which his writings established a new form of chorographical natural history investigation and writing is described, and how this work fed