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Reading Nature, Observing Science: Examining Material Practices in the Lick Observatory Archives and Kenneth S. Norris Papers

1949-1950 Species Accounts, Norris

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Connections: Materials of Observation Astronomers kept individual copybooks and scrapbooks in which they used sketches, illustrations, and visually descriptive language alongside numeric charts to record their observations. Charles Perrine's copybook here describes his day-to-day observations of the apparent size of a comet; Perrine's descriptions speak to the way in which it is difficult to describe something like light in purely objective terms, untouched by the discourse of aesthetics. In this set of charts from Edward Holden's scrapbook, Holden uses different shades of blue pen to represent the distribution of stars in the southern sky; the careful uniformity of these markings speaks to an aesthetic way of interfacing with the cosmos. The scrapbook also contains some illustrations of Jupiter, though Holden discounts them as having "no artistic merit." In what ways does the history of astronomical discovery at the Lick, often represented as a series of technologically impressive and visually impressive photographs produced by automated telescopes, omit the modes of observation and material practices archived here?

Material practices of observation were also central to Norris's work in natural history. He was a prolific note taker and filled numerous bound books with field notes, journal entries, and species accounts. Norris used the practice of note taking to document thoughts, sketches, and diagrams of the various animal species he encountered, ranging from dolphins and whales to lizards and snakes. He also took notes to record and reflect on his many experiences in the natural world. Norris's bound field notes from 1954-1960 speak to the wide range of his note taking practice, as the book is a textual collage of typed and handwritten journal entries, field notes, and species catalogues on various paper sizes.

Situating the Lick Observatory archives and the Ken Norris papers alongside each other reveals the ways in which science is immersed in particular material practices that ultimately inform scientific findings. Both archives revolve around embodied practices of note taking, illustrating, sketching, and charting in different formats. Calling attention to such embodied practices highlights the process behind the production of scientific knowledge, a process that is often occluded in histories of science.
Case 2: Natural History Ken Norris's extensive research, which ranged from marine mammal research to desert ecology, was centered on the larger field of natural history. In many ways, natural history was what brought Norris's diverse areas of study together. Norris was in fact a professor of natural history at UC Santa Cruz's Environmental Studies Department, where he created the popular Natural History Field Quarter. In his book The Hawaiian Spinner Dolphin (1994), which Norris co-authored with Bernd Würsig, Randall S. Wells, and Melany Würsig, he clearly defines what it means to do natural history work. Norris writes, "What we did [in The Hawaiian Spinner Dolphin] is what I call natural history. That is, we attempted to look at a single species from as many viewpoints as we could to contrive to understand what the totality of the dolphin's life is really like" (3). Norris thus defines natural history as a material practice of observation, one which entails using different methods of viewing in order to gain as much knowledge as possible about a particular species and its interactions with the natural world.

In his studies of cetaceans (dolphins and whales) and herpetology (reptiles and amphibians), Norris applied this practice of natural history, utilizing a wide array of observational methods and tools, such as underwater photography, glass slides, field notes, journal entries, sketches, diagrams, aerial observation logs, sonographs and audiotapes, as well as direct interactions with the natural world. These varied material practices lead us to question how different modes of observation influence the field of natural history and its production of knowledge. In other words, how are natural history knowledge formations shaped by Norris's layered practices of observation?