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Authorised form of nameBuchanan; John Young (1844 - 1925); chemist and oceanographer
Dates1844 - 1925
NationalityBritish
Place of birthDowanhill, Glasgow, Scotland
Date of birth20 February 1844
Place of deathLondon, England
Date of death16/10/1925
Dates and placesBurial: Lord's Row with his parents, against the west wall of Dean Cemetery, Dean Village, Edinburgh, Scotland
Occupationchemist and oceanographer
Research fieldMeteorology
Limnology
Physics
Oceanography
Chemistry
ActivityEducation:
Glasgow High Shool; Glasgow University. MA (1863)
Career:
Also studied at Marburg, Bonn, Leipzig and Paris (1863-1867); returned to Scotland and became assistant to Alexander Crum Brown (FRS 1879) (1871); Chemist and Physicist to the Challenger Expedition (1872-6); owned a steam yacht; involved cable laying; undertook researches in oceanography with Prince Albert I of Monaco; Lecturer on Geography, University of Cambrdige (1889-1893); moved to London (1899); travelled on various scientific voyages (1880-1890); suffererd ill health and a nervous breakdown (1912); sold his house in London (1914); moved to North America (1914-1918); returned to London (1918); died suddenly (1925).
Memberships:
FRSE; FCS
Awards/Medals:
Keith Prize 1887
Gold Medal of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society 1911
Comité de Perfectionnement of the Institut Océanographique (VP)
Order of St Charles of Monaco.
Membership categoryFellow
Date of election09/06/1887
Age at election43
ProposerWilliam Benjamin Carpenter
George John Romanes
George Murray Humphry
Isaac Bayley Balfour
Walter Noel Hartley
Thomas Edward Thorpe
William Turner
Joseph Norman Lockyer
Archibald Geikie
Arthur Schuster
Balfour Stewart
Henry Enfield Roscoe
James Dewar
William Thomson
George Henry Richards
George Strong Nares
Alexander Crum Brown
James Caird
RelationshipsParents: John Buchanan of Dowanhill (1807–1876), a merchant, and Jane (d. 1899), the daughter of John Young of Rowmore, Dunbartonshire.
Siblings: Thomas Ryburn Buchanan (1846–1911), MP.
Published worksRCN 30770
RCN 30771
General contextInvestigated the hydrolysis of chloroacetic acid to glycolic acid.
His work whilst on the Challenger was pivotal to the development of oceanography.
Studied chemistry of the sea, observing the chemical and physical properties of sea water, sea ice, and marine deposits.
Remembered for his discovery that Thomas Henry Huxley's (FRS 1851) Bathybius was in fact an inorganic residue created when sediment samples were stored in alcohol.
Demonstrated that the 'black rocks' the Challenger dredged from the sea-bed were concretions of manganese and other metals.
Investigated methods of measuring temperature and specific gravity of sea water, for which he devised a stopcock water bottle and piezometers for measuring pressure and temperature in the ocean depths.
SourcesSources:
Bulloch's Roll; DSB
Obituaries:
Proc Roy Soc Series A 1926 vol 110 pp xii-xiii, plate, signed by A E S
Virtual International Authority Filehttp://viaf.org/viaf/20441631
Royal Society codeNA7128
Archives associated with this Fellow
Reference numberTitleDate
EC/1887/03Buchanan, John Young: certificate of election to the Royal Society
MC/19/146Letter from [John Young] Buchanan, 26 Norfolk Street, Park Lane, to the Secretaries of the Royal Society10 February 1904
NLB/2/653Copy letter from Herbert Rix, to John Young Buchanan, Fellow of the Royal Society4 October 1888
NLB/9/457Copy letter from Herbert Rix, to Lord Rayleigh [John William Strutt], Secretary, Royal Society, Terling Place, Witham, Essex21 May 1894
NLB/9/561Copy letter from Herbert Rix, to John Young Buchanan, Fellow of the Royal Society, 36 Upper Brook Street, W.4 June 1894
NLB/15/886Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, to Lady Buchanan10 January 1898
RR/16/151Referee's report by Charles Vernon Boys, on a paper 'On the compressibility of solids' by John Young Buchanan9 March 1904
NLB/16/425Copy letter from Michael Foster, to J Y Buchanan1 April 1898
NLB/19/92Copy letter from Michael Foster, to the President of the Royal Geographical Society, [Sir Clements Robert Markham]16 June 1899
NLB/18/337Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, to Professor William Ramsay, Fellow of the Royal Society24 February 1899
NLB/19/820Copy letter from Theodore E James, to Messrs Harrison & Sons3 January 1900
NLB/20/552Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, to Dr W J Blanford, Fellow of the Royal Society21 May 1900
NLB/20/610Copy letter from Theodore E James, to Messrs Harrison & Sons[31 May 1900]
NLB/23/2/68Copy letter from Sir Michael Foster, to The Earl of Rosse [Laurence Parsons], Fellow of the Royal Society and John Young Buchanan, Fellow of the Royal Society14 May 1901
NLB/23/2/329Copy letter sent from Sir Michael Foster, to John Young Buchanan, Fellow of the Royal Society12 May 1903
NLB/23/2/472Copy letter from Joseph Larmor, to John Young Buchanan, Fellow of the Royal Society5 May 1904
NLB/28/450Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, to Charles Vernon Boys, Fellow of the Royal Society9 March 1904
NLB/28/528Copy letter from Joseph Larmor, to John Young Buchanan, Fellow of the Royal Society23 March 1904
NLB/32/50Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, to Messrs Harrison & Sons18 December 1905
NLB/38/84Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, to John Young Buchanan, Fellow of the Royal Society15 June 1908
NLB/37/641Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison to Sir William Crookes, Fellow of the Royal Society23 April 1908
NLB/37/749Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison to J [John] Y [Young] Buchanan, Fellow of the Royal Society8 May 1908
NLB/42/49Copy letter from Archibald Geikie, President RS [President of the Royal Society] to His Most Serene Higness, Albert I, Prince of MonacoMarch 1910
NLB/43/630Copy letter from Joseph Larmor, to John Young Buchanan, Fellow of the Royal Society28 February 1911
MC/27/44Letter from [John Young] Buchanan, 26 Norfolk Street, Park Lane, W, to Sir [Archibald] Geikie, [President of the Royal Society]28 November 1912
MC/10/178Letter from J Y [John Young] Buchanan, HMS 'Challenger', Hong Kong, to Professor [Thomas Henry] Huxley, Secretary of the Royal Society16 December 1874
NLB/54/393Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to [John Young] Buchanan, FRS2 May 1917
NLB/54/421Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to [John Young] Buchanan Esquire, FRS10 May 1917
NLB/59/685Copy letter from Edwin Deller, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to [John Young] Buchanan Esquire, FRS3 November 1920
NLB/68/852Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Sir Arthur Shipley, GBE, FRS13 November 1925
PP/11/21/3Diagram, 'Diagram showing the path described in 24 hours by a particle under the influence of the tidal and constant currents of figure 1' by John Young Buchanan1884
RR/15/31Referee's report by John Young Buchanan, on a paper 'The circulation of the surface waters of the North Atlantic ocean' by H N Dickson,28 May 1900
NLB/67/109Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to A. Macphail Esq.; Ministry of Health, Whitehall, S.W.127 October 1924
NLB/68/957Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Sir Arthur Shipley, FRS9 December 1925
NLB/68/761Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to H. R. Milne [Mill?] Esq.30 October 1925
NLB/33/659Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, to John Young Buchanan, Fellow of the Royal Society16 October 1906
MC/11/12Letter from J Y [John Young] Buchanan, 10 Moray Place, Edinburgh, to Walter White, [Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society], Burlington House30 January 1877
MC/10/402Letter from J Y [John Young] Buchanan, London, to Professor [George Gabriel] Stokes, Secretary of the Royal Society4 June 1876
MC/10Volume 10 of miscellaneous correspondence regarding business matters, sent to the Royal SocietyJuly 1873-1876
MC/11/15Letter from C [Charles] Wyville Thomson, 20 Palmerston Place, Edinburgh, to [John Young] Buchanan3 February 1877
MC/11/14Letter from J Y [John Young] Buchanan, 10 Moray Place, Edinburgh, to Walter White, [Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society], Burlington House30 January 1877
MC/11Volume 11 of miscellaneous correspondence regarding business matters, sent to the Royal Society1877-1879
PP/11/21Paper, 'On tidal currents in the ocean' by John Young Buchanan1884-1888
PP/11/21/1Manuscript, 'On tidal currents in the ocean' by John Young Buchanan1884-1888
PP/11/21/2Diagram, 'Diagram showing the resultant currents due to the composition of a constant current OP with a tidal current OT, OT' by John Young Buchanan1884
PP/24/9Paper, 'On rapid variations of atmospheric temperature, especially during Föhn, and the methods of observing them' by John Young Buchanan1894
NLB/14/670Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, to John Young Buchanan, Fellow of the Royal Society27 April 1897
MC/19/147Letter from [John Young] Buchanan, 26 Norfolk Street, Park Lane, to Professor [Joseph] Larmor16 February 1904
MC/19/149Postcard from [John Young] Buchanan, Monte Carlo, Monaco, to the Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society9 April 1904
MC/25/42Letter from [John Young] Buchanan, Palais de Monaco, to the [Assistant] Secretary of the Royal Society27 March 1910
MC/17Volume 17 of miscellaneous correspondence regarding business matters, sent to the Royal Society1897-1899
NLB/47/197Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison to J [John] Y [Young] Buchanan FRS13 December 1912
MC/29/32Letter from [John Young] Buchanan, 26 Norfolk Street, Park Lane, W, to The Secretaries, [Royal Society], Burlington House23 March 1914
MC/29/41Letter from S.E Carr, Assistant Secretary, Chemical Society, Burlington House, London, W, to Robert Harrison, Assistant Secretary, Royal Society, Burlington House, W11 March 1914
MC/19Volume 19 of miscellaneous correspondence regarding business matters, sent to the Royal Society1904
MC/19/148Letter from [John Young] Buchanan, to Professor [Joseph] Larmor, Secretary of the Royal Society19 March 1904
NLB/54/559Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Francis C. Buchanan Esquire; Clarinish, Row, Dumbartonshire18 June 1917
MC/39Volume 39 of miscellaneous correspondence regarding business matters, sent to the Royal Society1925
MC/39/78Letter from Hugh Robert Mill, Hill Crest, Dormans Park, East Grinstead, to the Assistant Sercetary of the Royal Society2 November 1925
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