F. C. van Heurn — Ir. Jhr. F. C. van Heurn (Frederik Carel van Heurn) — was a Dutch chemical engineer (scheikundig ingenieur) and naturalist who had been attached for some years to the Avros research station at Medan, and who was the author of Gegevens betreffende den bodem van Sumatra’s Oostkust — Data concerning the soil of Sumatra’s East Coast — cited by Broersma in Verkenningen in Atjeh for its judgement on the soils of Tamiang. As an ornithologist, Van Heurn collected birds in Atjeh in 1920 and, with Mr. Dr. Baron R. C. E. G. J. Snouckaert van Schauburg, published the paper Over eene collectie vogelhuiden van Oost-Atjeh describing a collection of bird skins gathered on the estates Aloer Djamboe in Tamiang and Alas Peurba south of Lho Seumawe in East Atjeh.
The Atjeh bird collections of 1920
Van Heurn collected birds in Atjeh in 1920 in two successive expeditions, both of which were worked up by Snouckaert van Schauburg for publication in the Jaarberichten (Yearbook) of the Koloniaal Instituut in Amsterdam.
The first collection — described in the Avifaunistische Studien in de Gajo-landen — was made in the region of Lake Takengon (1200 metres above sea level) in Gajo-land (Atjeh). The highland, montane character of the collecting locality distinguished this collection from the second.
The second collection — described in the Over de tweede Atjeh-collectie van Jhr. F. C. van Heurn — was made at much lower-lying localities nearer the northeast coast, in the months September–November 1920. As Snouckaert records, Ditmaal viel de keuze op veel lager gelegen localiteiten meer nabij de N.O.-kust, te weten de ondernemingen Alas Peurba (200 M.) en Aloer Djamboe (50 M.) — “This time the choice fell on much lower-lying localities nearer the northeast coast, namely the estates Alas Peurba (200 M.) and Aloer Djamboe (50 M.).” Having returned to the Netherlands, Van Heurn asked Snouckaert to work up the collection: De Heer van Heurn, onlangs in het vaderland teruggekeerd, heeft mij verzocht ook deze verzameling te bewerken — “Mr. Van Heurn, recently returned to the fatherland, has asked me to work up this collection too.” The earliest specimen recorded is dated 11 September 1920 and the latest 25 November 1920.
The two collections together — the one montane, the other lowland — gave a sample of the avifauna of Atjeh from the interior highlands to the coastal plain. The later, joint paper Over eene collectie vogelhuiden van Oost-Atjeh described material collected on the same estates (Aloer Djamboe and Alas Peurba) in a more comprehensive treatment.
The Oost-Atjeh paper
The Over eene collectie vogelhuiden van Oost-Atjeh, co-authored with Snouckaert, opened with the authors’ argument that the richest field for tropical avifaunal collecting is the virgin primeval forest. Van Heurn is the author of the photograph of the Paja Tjitcem or bird-swamp reproduced in the paper and captioned (Auct. phot.). He and his co-author recorded their debt to the agency of the Handelsvereeniging Amsterdam, under whose management the two estates stood, for permission and facilities, observing that dit bewijs van belangstelling van een commercieel lichaam in zuiver wetenschappelijk werk verdient zeker hooge waardeering — “this proof of the interest of a commercial body in purely scientific work certainly deserves high appreciation.”
The authors’ general judgement on Atjeh as a field for research is recorded in the paper: no part of Sumatra contained more extensive primeval forests, and Atjeh was richer in natural beauty than the Padangsche Bovenlanden, more virgin and still less visited by naturalists.
The Pitta granatina vanheurni question
The second-collection paper records a juvenile male Pitta granatina vanheurni — a subspecies of the garnet pitta named after Van Heurn by Kloss — collected at Alas Peurba on 13 September 1920. Snouckaert notes that the Sumatran form of the garnet pitta had only recently become known to science, and that Van Heurn’s specimens were among the very few then in collections. Van Heurn himself, however, on the basis of the material he had examined, was of the opinion that the distinction of the Sumatran form from the Malayan coccinea was not well founded — a difference of judgement between the collector and the ornithologist who named the subspecies.
The Tamiang soil judgement
Van Heurn’s verdict on page 103 of his soil-survey is that the tertiary hill-land of Tamiang differs from the mountains of the same formation in that its surface consists mainly of clays and clay-stones, while the marls and sandstones — elsewhere appearing as sandy hills — are here in the minority. The sandy patches are as unfruitful as the sandy tertiary soils of Bengkalis, but the clays, ‘bij behoorlijke drainage voor Europeesche cultures voortreffelijke eigenschappen te bezitten’ — “with proper drainage possess excellent properties for European cultures.” Broersma comments drily that Van Heurn does not say how the clays have proved those excellent properties: ‘dat hebben bewezen, zegt de schrijver niet. Door de nu bestaande aanplantingen misschien? Maar dan is het bewijs van te weinig omvang.’ — “That they have proved it, the author does not say. Through the existing plantings, perhaps? But then the proof is of too little extent.” The implication is that the great hopes once held for Tamiang as a planting-country had proved too high.
Significance
Van Heurn’s significance within the AcehWiki corpus is twofold. As a soil scientist, his survey is one of the standard works on the agricultural geology of the Oostkust van Sumatra in the early civilian period, and his judgement on the Tamiang clays is the principal geological basis for the literature on the disappointing performance of the Tamiang and Langsa plantation-groups in the years around 1920. As an ornithologist and collector, his two successive collections of bird skins in Atjeh in 1920 — the first in the highland region of Lake Takengon, the second at the lowland estates of Alas Peurba and Aloer Djamboe — furnished the material for the three papers published by Snouckaert and by Snouckaert and Van Heurn jointly in the Jaarberichten of the Koloniaal Instituut, and his name is commemorated in the subspecies Pitta granatina vanheurni.
See Also
- Gegevens betreffende den bodem van Sumatra’s Oostkust
- Verkenningen in Atjeh (1923)
- Tamiang
- Avros
- Medan
- Bengkalis
- Oostkust van Sumatra
- Over eene collectie vogelhuiden van Oost-Atjeh
- Over de tweede Atjeh-collectie van Jhr. F. C. van Heurn
- Avifaunistische Studien in de Gajo-landen
- R. C. E. G. J. Snouckaert van Schauburg
- Aloer Djamboe
- Alas Peurba
- Takengon
- Gajo-land
- Paja Tjitcem
- Handelsvereeniging Amsterdam
- Oost-Atjeh
- Lho Seumawe
- Koninklijke Vereeniging Koloniaal Instituut
- 1920
- 1921
- 1923
Sources
Gegevens betreffende den bodem van Sumatra’s Oostkust enz., by F. C. van Heurn, scheikundig ingenieur, verbonden aan het Avros-proefstation te Medan (n.d., c. 1923), p. 103. Cited in Verkenningen in Atjeh by Dr. R. Broersma, p. 8.
Over eene collectie vogelhuiden van Oost-Atjeh, door Ir. Jhr. F. C. van Heurn en Mr. Dr. Baron R. C. E. G. J. Snouckaert van Schauburg, in Jaarberichten (Koloniaal Instituut). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Br N 95-1210.
Over de tweede Atjeh-collectie van Jhr. F. C. van Heurn, door Mr. Dr. Baron R. C. E. G. J. Snouckaert van Schauburg, in Jaarberichten van de Koninklijke Vereeniging Koloniaal Instituut (Amsterdam). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, shelfmark Br N 95-1208.
Acknowledgement of sources. The material in this article derives from Gegevens betreffende den bodem van Sumatra’s Oostkust by F. C. van Heurn (c. 1923), as cited in Verkenningen in Atjeh by Dr. R. Broersma; from Over eene collectie vogelhuiden van Oost-Atjeh by Ir. Jhr. F. C. van Heurn and Mr. Dr. Baron R. C. E. G. J. Snouckaert van Schauburg (Koloniaal Instituut, Jaarberichten); and from Over de tweede Atjeh-collectie van Jhr. F. C. van Heurn by Mr. Dr. Baron R. C. E. G. J. Snouckaert van Schauburg (Koloniaal Instituut, Jaarberichten). Dutch passages are quoted in the original with an English rendering.