‘Preaching Disaffection’ in the Presbyterian Atlantic: Jotham Blanchard and the Reform Crisis in Scotland and Nova Scotia, c. 1827–37

In the 1820s and '30s Jotham Blanchard (1800-38), assemblyman for Pictou, Nova Scotia, launched a reform campaign against the Nova Scotian government. With the help of his mentor, the Rev. Thomas McCulloch, a Presbyterian missionary from Scotland, Blanchard attacked the colonial establishment for its failure to support the Pictou Academy, a college of higher learning for religious dissenters. Connected to a transatlantic denominational information web, Blanchard and McCulloch were inspired by the radical ecclesiology of the Scottish United Secession Church, with which McCulloch was affiliated. In 1831 Blanchard travelled to Britain to lobby the Colonial Office. There he was aided by the ministers of the United Secession, currently embroiled in their own local campaign in support of the Reform Bill. Blanchard's visit impacted on the domestic scene and the two campaigns became closely interwoven. Unfortunately for Blanchard his mission failed and he was written out of Nova Scotian history. Colonial historiography, concerned with celebrating the role of local heroes in the struggle for national self-determination, has focused overwhelmingly on the legacy of Joseph Howe, the triumphant champion of responsible government. Situating the Nova Scotian campaign within a transatlantic context, this article resurrects Blanchard's career and underlines its importance.</p

Dark energy survey operations: years 4 and 5

The Dark Energy Survey (DES) is an operating optical survey aimed at understanding the accelerating expansion of the universe using four complementary methods: weak gravitational lensing, galaxy cluster counts, baryon acoustic oscillations, and Type Ia supernovae. To perform the 5000 sq-degree wide field and 30 sq-degree supernova surveys, the DES Collaboration built the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), a 3 square-degree, 570-Megapixel CCD camera that was installed at the prime focus of the Blanco 4-meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO). DES has completed its third observing season out of a nominal five. This paper describes DES "Year 4" (Y4) and "Year 5" (Y5), the survey strategy, an outline of the survey operations procedures, the efficiency of operations and the causes of lost observing time. It provides details about the quality of these two-season's data, a summary of the overall status, and plans for the final survey season.U.S. Department of Energy; U.S. National Science Foundation; Ministry of Science and Education of Spain; Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom; Higher Education Funding Council for England; National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago; Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at the Ohio State University; Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas AM University; Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos, Fundacao Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico; Ministerio da Ciencia, Tecnologia e Inovacao; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft; Dark Energy Survey; National Science Foundation [AST-1138766, AST-1536171]; MINECO [AYA2015-71825, ESP2015-66861, FPA2015-68048, SEV-2016-0588, SEV-2016-0597, MDM-2015-0509]; European Union; CERCA program of the Generalitat de Catalunya; European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013) including ERC grant [240672, 291329, 306478]; Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO) [CE110001020]; Brazilian Instituto Nacional de Ciencia e Tecnologia (INCT) e-Universe (CNPq) [465376/2014-2]; U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics [DE-AC02-07CH11359]; Argonne National Laboratory; University of California at Santa Cruz; University of Cambridge; Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas; Medioambientales y Tecnologicas-Madrid; University of Chicago; University College London; DES-Brazil Consortium; University of Edinburgh; Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zurich; Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Institut de Ciencies de l'Espai (IEEC/CSIC); Institut de Fisica d'Altes Energies; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Ludwig-Maximilians Universitat Munchen; associated Excellence Cluster Universe; University of Michigan; National Optical Astronomy Observatory; University of Nottingham; Ohio State University; University of Pennsylvania; University of Portsmouth; SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory; Stanford University; University of Sussex; OzDES Membership Consortium; Texas AM UniversityThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]