Jean Hyacinthe de Magellan studied at the school of the Augustinian Santa Cruz Monastery in Coimbra since he was eleven years old, and there he lived and studied for about twenty years, first as a novice and then as a monk.
Jean Hyacinthe de Magellan studied at the school of the Augustinian Santa Cruz Monastery in Coimbra since he was eleven years old, and there he lived and studied for about twenty years, first as a novice and then as a monk.
Jean-Hyacinthe de Magellan was a Portuguese chemist, physicist, and natural philosopher. He previously had been a monk of the order of St. Augustine.
Background
Jean-Hyacinthe de Magellan was born João Jacinto de Magalhães on November 4, 1722, in Aveiro, Portugal to the family of Clemente de Magalhães Leitão and Joana Lourença Soares. He is a 5th grandson of Tiago de Magalhães, the elder brother of the great navigator Ferdinand Magellan. He is also claimed as a near relative of Gabriel Magellan and of Antonio Magellan. The former, a well-known Jesuit missionary, traveled over China from 1640 to 1648, till he was carried to the court of Pekin, where he resided till his death in 1677. The latter, Antonio Magellan, accompanied the papal legate, Mezzabarba, from China to Rome in 1721-1726. Little is known about Magellan’s youth and early manhood. His family, who made an unproven claim to be descended from Ferdinand Magellan, sent him to an Augustinian monastery in Coimbra when he was eleven years old.
Magellan was baptized on November 22, 1722, and 11 months passed he was orphan of mother and father. In fact, his mother died possibly as a consequent of the delivery five days after giving birth to his first son. The father died less than a year after, in 1723, with 56 years of age. It isn't known who took care of the newborn child and of the education of the little boy whose first years of life were almost certainly passed in his home town of Aveiro.
Education
At the age of eleven, Jean Hyacinthe de Magellan entered the Colégio da Sapiência at the Monastery of Santa Cruz in Coimbra, of the Order of St. Augustine, one of the most prestigious monasteries in the country for the quality of its teaching. It is not known who took for him the decision of that entrance but possibly the influence of some relatives who were influent in the clerical milieus of Coimbra and Aveiro and also the fact that Magellan possessed some assets that, in the future, could constitute the entrance dowry to the monastery might have helped the decision. Certainly also a level of intelligence and interest to learn above normal on the part of the adolescent must have had influence in the decision to enter and to be accepted into a college famous for its requirements and the high level of the studies that were practiced there.
There was a scientific tradition among the Coimbra Augustinians (it is reported that they studied the works of Newton). Magellan obtained a wide reputation as a student of chemistry and mineralogy and other branches of natural science. He was pursuing his studies in the Portuguese capital when the city was destroyed by the great earthquake of 1755, an event which he could never recollect without shuddering.
Jean Hyacinthe de Magellan progressed in the Order until he obtained the major orders in 1751, at the age of 29, thus becoming an Augustinian Canon Regular, that is a priest. The conditions and circumstances of his egression from the Order are not yet well known since the egression petition letter and the process that must have followed were not yet discovered as well as the exact date and terms of the final decision. However, a pretty correct approximation to those conditions can be established from existing documents, as we shall see ahead. The egression is first referred by Gabriel de Bory in his report of the voyage made to Portugal in order to observe the solar eclipse of 26th October 1753. Magellan served as Bory’s guide and assistant during the latter’s visit and, in turn, Bory was instrumental in introducing Magellan to a wide circle of leading European scientists and men of influence, particularly those of France. A few years later Magellan sought and received permission from Pope Benedict XIV to leave the order. Later, in a letter to Ayres de Sá e Mello, Portuguese Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and War, Magellan refers “the Congregation of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine from where I am egress by force of a Brief of His Holiness.” He also refers in the same letter the value of the annual revenue that he was entitled to receive from the congregation according to the terms of the egression decision.
A few years after his egression from the Augustinians, which took place formally between 1754 and 1758, Magellan went abroad in a “tour philosophique”, as he called it, to visit France, the Low Countries, Rome and probably northern Italy and England. He must have been most of the time in Paris with Ribeiro Sanches the prestigious exiled Portuguese doctor who have settled there in 1747 after his stay in Russia. In fact, Sanches helped Magellan financially as he acknowledged.
During this tour, Magellan published a few books, two translations and one edition of a famous work of a Portuguese 17th-century author. In the three publications, there are indications of the evolution of Magellan’s mind concerning religion. One of the translations is the Greek Grammar of Port Royal, an abbey that was perhaps the main stronghold, in France, of Jansenism and consequently of anti-Jesuitism, as well as anti-absolutism.
The other book Magellan translated and published was an anti-Jesuit pamphlet, written by a French egress capuchin. The date of publication of this translation, as well as of the original is 1763, but it may have been prepared for publication earlier since we know that the author, Abbé Platel had been visiting Lisbon as early as 1761, possibly at the service of the Prime minister’s anti-Jesuit policy. This translation and publication may suggest that at the time, Magellan was in good terms with the enlightened political views of the Count of Oeiras, late Marquis of Pombal.
During this French period, Magellan became an unpaid confidential agent of the French government, possibly during this period, reporting on major technical innovations introduced outside France: surviving letters show that he was engaged in such activities by 1770. The Director of the French Government’s bureau of commerce, Daniel Trudaine (1703-1769), made use of expert agents to discover the secrets of foreign industrial superiority, particularly British, and the practice was continued by his son, Trudaine de Montigny (1733-1777), who took over the directorship from his father in 1764. Soon after settling in London in 1764, Magellan was regularly sending the younger Trudaine packages of books and pamphlets describing new inventions and, on one occasion, he even endeavored to smuggle out of England a newly developed loom that the British.
It is known that, in the early years of his arrival in London, Magellan was treated and known as Abbot Magalhaens (or Abbé Magalhaens and Abade Magalhaens, for his French and Portuguese speaking friends) and in this way he was addressed by his friends and correspondents or those who referred to him in their correspondence. This is true at least for the first years of his stay in London, that is, until the mid-seventies.
Magellan produced no scientific work of serious consequence. He did, however, find ways to meet or to write to everyone whose activities interested him, and, as a result, is known chiefly for his wide circle of acquaintances and for acting as an intermediary in disseminating new information. He introduced English scientific instruments into France, edited Cronstedt’s Mineralogy, and informed the French chemists of Priestley’s work. He was a fellow of the Royal Society and a member of several European academies of science. Industrial spy, indefatigable learner of languages, a shameless borrower from others’ writings, Magellan nevertheless showed little of that malice usually associated with the gossip or the hanger-on. A curious mixture of unoriginality and independence, he had no great ambitions for himself.
Magellan wrote more about scientific instruments than about any other subject. His first work (1775), a description of English octants and sextants of the reflecting or Hadleyan type, was clearly written, detailed, and useful. He also wrote on barometers and other meteorological instruments (although not always with full understanding), and on Atwood’s machine. These works were all in French, in keeping with Magellan’s role as correspondent of the Academy of Sciences, as an agent of Trudaine de Montigny (intendant of finances), and as a bearer of good news to the Continent from the land of the artisan-scientist coalition.
Through his reading, correspondence, and acquaintances, Magellan kept up with the latest developments in English, Scottish, and Swedish chemistry and experimental physics. His work on “elementary fire” helped to disseminate the new theories of heat being worked out by Black, Irvine, and Crawford, and introduced the term “specific heat” (chaleur spécifique)into the language. It also gave the first published table of specific heats, although these were derived from determinations by Richard Kirwan. Magellan early saw how important were the investigations of Priestley, whose good friend he became, and his characteristic response to Priestley’s fundamental research was twofold: he told the French about it, and he produced a pamphlet describing some small improvements in the apparatus for making carbonated water and some refinements in the construction of nitric oxide eudiometers.
Gustav von Engestrom, who had studied mineralogy with Cronstedt, was Magellan’s link with Swedish chemistry. Engestrom translated into English, at Magellan’s behest, the Mineralogy of Cronstedt (1770). Magellan undertook to publish a second edition, which was to have notes by Giovanni Fabbroni and Kirwan; but by the time he was ready, Kirwan’s own Mineralogy had appeared (1784). Magellan went ahead, and, to Kirwan’s great annoyance, borrowed from him where appropriate, and also incorporated recently published findings of Bergman, Scheele, A. Mongez, and M. T. Briinnich. Although he “rearranged” the text to include new developments, Magellan was convinced that much in Cronstedt’s system was still valuable. He especially endorsed the latter’s combination of chemical analysis with the observation of the external characteristics of minerals.
In his notes to Cronstedt, Magellan gave a good picture of conventional contemporary thinking about the foundations of chemistry. Thus various bodies, he said, although suspected of being compound, “may and even ought to be considered as primitive substances with respect to our knowledge of them, till they shall be experimentally decomposed.”
Magellan devoted his last years to perfecting the construction of instruments for scientific observation, such as thermometers and barometers, etc. Among the most notable of his mechanical devices was a clock which he made for the blind Duke of Aremburg, which indicated by the strokes of various bells the hours, half-hours, quarters, and minutes, the day of the week, of the month, of the moon, etc.
Magellan's book on English reflecting instruments, published in Paris and London, 1775, was declared by Lalande to be the most complete work on the subject at that period. In June 1778 Magellan was at Ermenonville, the seat of the Marquis de Gerardin, and there, with M. du Presle, visited Jean-Jacques Rousseau a few days before his death on 2 July. He added a postscript describing his visit to Du Presle's ‘Relation des derniers Jours de J. J. Rousseau,’ London, 1778. Magellan definitely settled in London soon afterwards. He still maintained an animated correspondence with the chief French, Italian, and German physicists, and endeavored to establish a system by which they might communicate to one another the results of their investigations of special subjects. He was for some time engaged in superintending the construction of a set of astronomical and meteorological instruments for the court of Madrid, which he described in 1779; and he also published descriptions of apparatus for making mineral waters and of some new eudiometers for testing respirable air.
Among Magellan's friends was the Hungarian Count de Benyowsky. About 1784 the count borrowed a large sum of Magellan and was soon afterwards shot as a pirate by the French in Madagascar. Magellan gave the count's memoirs to William Nicholson, who published them in English in 1790. Magellan's French version of the memoirs appeared after his death, and the latest letters of Magellan to Benyowsky were published in the Hungarian writer Jokai's new edition of the count's memoirs. Magellan never recovered the money lent to the count and suffered much from the loss.
On September 17, 1785, Jean Hyacinthe Magellan sent a letter to the American Philosophical Society (APS) inquiring if the Society would be willing to accept 200 guineas to establish a yearly scientific prize. Magellan envisioned the premium being awarded for the best discovery or useful improvement in the areas of navigation or natural philosophy ("mere natural history only excepted.")
The form of the Premium fit into the views of the Society's founder and then president, Benjamin Franklin, who viewed the awarding of medals and prizes as an appropriate custom for the new democratic Republic. In his letter, Magellan set forth the conditions for the Premium's appearance. The prize would be a solid gold oval plate, on which was engraved a short Latin inscription, the date, and the names of the Premium, the Society and its president, and the winner. He insisted that the only other ornamentation be the Society's seal attached with a silk string ribbon.
Magellan wrote that all he required was the reply of the Society, and he would send the 200 guineas by way of his friend Samuel Vaughan (APS member 1784). Benjamin Franklin personally wrote Magellan on January 24, 1786, to "thankfully accept" the offer, and inform him that a committee had already been formed to establish rules for the award in accordance with his intentions. The Society had approved the Premium, with slight modifications to Magellan's conditions and the addition of astronomy to the categories. Once Vaughan had informed the Society that he had received the money from Magellan, Franklin stated the APS would, "without unnecessary delay, provide for funding this capital advertise the proposed premium." The APS carried an announcement of Magellan's offer in the next volume of its publication Transactions of the American Philosophical Society (Volume 2, 1786), which was followed by an advertisement for the award in Volume 3, 1793. In the 215 years since Magellan offered the Premium, the APS has awarded only 32: twelve for navigation, twelve for natural philosophy, and eight for astronomy.
Magellan died on 7 February 1790, after more than a year's illness.
Achievements
Jean Hyacinthe de Magellan managed to leave a rich legacy in natural philosophy as well as in chemistry, physics, and scientific instrumentation. His works and views influenced many of his contemporaries and scientific descendants who left a prominent impact on the development of science. His memory is respected by the Magellanic Premium founded by the American Philosophical Society.
(Astronomical clock made by Jean Hyacinthe de Magellan, no...)
Religion
Magellan's personal religious evolution as well as his views about personal, social and ethical matters developed under the influence of the religious practice in Portugal during the first half of the 18th century and of the reactionary ideas prevalent in the country at that time was certainly decisive to his emigration to England, since he was a cultivated man that had a strong will to devote himself to scientific matters. Through his correspondence and other sources, it is confirmed that he never gave up Catholicism, though his religious practice was not always strict and orthodox, and sometimes it seemed to be somewhat similar to Protestantism.
Views
Magellan’s ideas are firmly opposed to any kind of oppression and indefectibly in favour of liberties. His invectives towards the Inquisition are common in his letters where he criticizes the situation in Portugal in very harsh terms. Magellan expresses his views against tyranny in several instances, as for example when he meets the son of the deposed Prime Minister, the Marquis of Pombal. The same sentiment is shown by the attitude he takes on the occasion of the Royal Society’s troubles about the position that a few members take against its president Sir Joseph Banks for his will to manipulate the rules in order to make elect a number of his friends in a manner they considered dictatorial. Magellan was an anti-colonialist.
Magellan also shared the widespread belief that the smallest bit of a chemically reacting substance is some sort of basic unit, and asserted at one and the same time that these smallest parts probably possess polarity and that we know nothing whatever about them. As Magellan’s editing proceeded, the notes on Lavoisier’s new theory of combustion and calcination increased, until finally, Magellan conceded to the arguments in the Nomenclature (1787).
Quotations:
"We may complain indeed of the deficiency of our knowledge in regard to the essential cause of this phenomenon which we mean to explain by the word attraction; but it being the ultimate effect our knowledge can reach to, after our observation has been driven from cause to cause of all that we can discern in nature, we must rest contented with the simple deductions from such an evident and general principle, whatever may be its original cause."
"Here is the Count of Oeiras, son of the famous Marquis of Pombal, to whom I hope to give a good beating of punches when I cross with him in the Elysium for his tyranny; however the son who is here is very different from his Father, in almost everything: but has a very kind heart and character."
"Here things go like hell. Separated America, will be the sole asylum for philosophical spirits, as soon as peace is done: since it is necessary that finally it is done at least when the lack of this great amount of money in England begins to be felt."
"The war doesn’t give me any embarrassment. If I had gone to America, as I wished 10 or 12 years ago, but you advised me not to do so; then yes I would be now captain at least of some company of Americans."
Membership
Magellan's work and fame earned him membership in the Royal Society of England (1774) and the American Philosophical Society (1784), as well as corresponding membership in the academies of science in Paris, Madrid, and St. Petersburg.
Royal Society
,
United Kingdom
American Philosophical Society
,
United States
French Academy of Sciences
,
France
Royal Society of Sciences of Madrid
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Spain
Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences
,
Russia
Order of Hermits of Saint Augustine
Personality
Jean Hyacinthe de Magellan's rebellious personality often was a reason for him to question the traditional ecclesiastic views. His character made him to always announce other people that something in their theories or behavior was inconsistent to logic, morals or common sense which earned him a number of opponents in scientific and religious circles.
Connections
Jean Hyacinthe de Magellan was never married and had no children.
