GEOGRAPHY, SCIENCE AND NATIONAL IDENTITY IN EARLY-MODERN BRITAIN - THE CASE OF SCOTLAND AND THE WORK OF SIR SIBBALD,ROBERT (1641-1722)

Following a review of connections between early modern geography and s cience and the forms taken by early modern geography, the paper discus ses the geographical work and writings of Sir Robert Sibbald, who from 1682 was Geographer Royal. Geography in early modem England has been shown to be a means to national identity - through survey, local, and regional description, and via the empirical investigation of nature. S cotland has been largely neglected in such work. Sibbald's vision for geographical knowledge as part of useful natural knowledge is outlined in detail in his Account of the Scotish Atlas or the Description of S cotland Ancient and Modem (1683), and in the preface to his Scotia Ill ustrata (1684). These texts are examined in the context of what was un derstood by geography as a scientific practice in early modern Britain . Sibbald's questionnaire and survey methods are shown to be broadly c onsistent with the chorographical traditions of his contemporaries, an d to have been critically dependent on the assistance of other scholar s interested in natural knowledge in Scotland. Sibbald's practice of g eography and that of his contemporaries was undertaken in order to pro mote geographical knowledge as socially useful, interesting in its own terms, and supportive of the scientific and social contexts through w hich it was promoted.