Jessica Duncan Piazzi Smyth

As a single woman in her thirties, Jessie Duncan joined geological field trips around the British Isles, and traveled as far from home as Switzerland and Italy in her scientific pursuits.

She married Charles Piazzi Smyth in December 1855, and the two traveled the next year to Tenerife, to visit the peak of the highest mountain and assess its potential for an astronomical observatory.

[3] Together, the Piazzi Smyths traveled around the Mediterranean and Northern Africa, making astronomical observations, often in mountainous locations.

Jessie kept the notes and sketches for their expeditions, learned to prepare and preserve local foods,[4] and was otherwise a constant assistant to her husband's work.

[6] Almost entirely at their own expense, she and Charles sailed in November 1864 to Egypt and spent four months living in a tent beside the Great Pyramid of Giza.