nature,
occasioned as matter pertinent to the work done in the six dayes of the
world's creation by English doctor and clergyman John Swan is an odd
work of natural history within the framework of theology, attempting an
encyclopaedic representation of scientific knowledge of the 17th century
arranged according to the six days of the Creation. As such it embodies
contemporary conflicts between science and scripture, superstition and
belief: Swan criticises the ignorance that characterised spontaneously
combusted swamp gases as walking spirits and rejects tales of many fantastic
creatures but accepts the existence of fish with feet and mermaids
among the 'strange fish' of the waters. The work, first published
in 1635, went through four editions to 1670 (in some of which revisions
Swan changed his mind on 'certain not insignificant matters') and was reprinted
in 1698, but lost favour in the more exacting scientific critical climate
of the eighteenth century.
Below are links to selections from the first edition published in 1635. These are presented as image only PDF files, and you will need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer in order to view them. As it was necessary to scan the pages at a relatively high resolution, these files are quite large.
This copy was presented to the library in 1959 by Dr. H.K. Fry, a University
of Adelaide medical graduate (1908), Rhodes scholar and lecturer in Materia
Medica and Therapeutics from 1920-39.
| File | Section | File Size |
| swand.pdf | Frontispiece-Contents | 1 Mb |
| swan6d-1.pdf | Chapter 6 - "Wherein is contained a survey of the third dayes work; together with such things as are pertinent to it"; pages 188-207 | 1.7 Mb |
| swan6d-2.pdf | Chapter 6 cont.; pages 208-227. | 1.9 Mb |
| swan6d-3.pdf | Chapter 6 cont.; pages 228-250. | 1.6 Mb |
| swan6d-4.pdf | Chapter 6 cont.: pages 251-271. | 1.7 Mb |
| swan6d-5.pdf | Chapter 6 cont.; pages 272-291. | 1.7 Mb |
| swan6d-6.pdf | Chapter 6 cont.; pages 292-309. | 1.5 Mb |
| swan9d-1.pdf | Chapter 9 - "The ninth chapter concerneth the creatures made in the sixth and last day; namely creatures living neither in the aire, nor water, but upon the earth; and these be of two sorts, the brute beasts, and Man"; pages 427-445. | 2 Mb |
| swan9d-2.pdf | Chapter 9 cont.; pages 446-465. | 1.7 Mb |
| swan9d-3.pdf | Chapter 9 cont.; pages 466-485. | 1.9 Mb |
| swan9d-4.pdf | Chapter 9 cont.; pages 486-504. | 1.6 Mb |
| dswanind.pdf | Index | 2 Mb
|