David Milne-Home

This article is about the British geologist. For his son the British politician, see David Milne Home (politician).

David Milne-Home FRSE (born David Milne, 1805, Inveresk, East Lothian - 1890, Milne-Graden) was a Scottish advocate, geologist and meteorologist.

Milne was the junior defence counsel for the notorious grave-robber William Burke,[1] and later served as Advocate-Depute for the Crown Office.

Milne and his wife Jean Home (m. 1832) later adopted the famous name Home, when she inherited the Wedderburn, Billie and Paxton estates in 1852.[2]

His father was Admiral Sir David Milne, and his younger brother became Admiral of the Fleet Sir Alexander Milne, 1st Baronet.

He is remembered today chiefly for his work on earthquakes. As Secretary of the British Association of the Advancement of Science Earthquakes Committee from 1840 to around 1845, he published extensive reports into the earthquake swarm at Comrie, Perthshire, a catalogue of earthquakes in Britain culled from historical sources, and theoretical observations on earthquake phenomena that were advanced for their time. [3]

It was Milne who coined the word "seismometer" in 1841, to describe an instrument designed by James David Forbes.[4]

References

  1. ↑ "David Milne-Home". Gazetteer for Scotland. Retrieved 2 September 2010.
  2. ↑ Roy, Marjory; Land, David (Spring 2000). "David Milne-Home - a biographical sketch with notes on his geological work". The Edinburgh Geologist (Edinburgh Geological Society) (34).
  3. ↑ Milne, D. 1842-4. Notices of earthquake-shocks felt in Great Britain, and especially in Scotland, with inferences suggested by these notices as to the causes of the shocks. Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, Vol. 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 92-122, 106-127, 372-388, 185-107, 137-160, 172-186, 362-377.
  4. ↑ Ben-Menahem, A. (2009). Historical Encyclopedia of Natural and Mathematical Sciences , Volume 1. Springer. p. 2657. ISBN 9783540688310. Retrieved 28 August 2012.


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