| Description | 'Scotland coloured according to the rock formations', by Louis Albert NECKER, [1808]. Geological colouring on base map 'North Britain or Scotland divided into its Counties, corrected from the best surveys and astronomical observations by Thomas Kitchin', published by William Faden, 1 December 1778. Dissected. |
| Administrative History | Louis Albert Necker was born in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1786. His father Jacques Necker was a professor of botany and local magistrate, his mother Albertine was the daughter of the famous alpine geologist and naturalist Horace Benedict de Saussure.
Necker moved to Scotland in 1806 to study at the University of Edinburgh, where he attended the lectures of Robert Jameson, professor of natural history and a Wernerian. Whilst based in Edinburgh, Necker undertook a series of tours around Scotland, including visits to Fife, Berwickshire, Arran and the Isle of Skye. The result of the tours was the construction of the earliest known geological map of the whole of Scotland, influenced by Huttonian and Wernian principles, which he presented to the Geological Society in 1808.
In 1810, Necker returned to Geneva to become chair of mineralogy and geology but continued to make extensive geological tours. After the death of his mother in 1841, Necker returned to Scotland, settling in the town of Portree on the Isle of Skye. He died on 20 November 1861. |