Tufa eggs for Easter, Matlock Bath, Derbyshire

Birds nest and eggs encrusted in tufa, Matlock Bath, Derbyshire. Photograph from the Geologists' Association 'Carreck Archive'

Original description: 'Tufa which also goes by the name of Travertin [Travertine] or Calcareous Sinter is a deposit of Carbonate of Lime thrown down by springs which flow through beds of limestone. In this case at Matlock these specimens are from lime obtained from the Carboniferous Limestone. The rain in passing through the atmosphere takes up Carbonic acid and assisted by humic acid from the soil when it sinks into the limestone dissolves portions of it away. When it comes to the surface again in the form of springs it loses some of the Carbonic acid and the lime is thrown down in the form of tufa and incrusting any object that happens to be present.'

T.W. Reader photograph album. Derbyshire, August 3rd 1914.

Bob McIntosh

Easter 1916, Bourton, Dorset. Geologists' Association Excursion.

Geologists' Association Excursion Easter 1916 - a page from a GA photograph album.

The image is a page from one of the many GA photograph albums now on deposit at the National Geological Records Centre, British Geological Survey and currently undergoing digitization and cataloguing. The GA 'Carreck Archive' is an amazing resource. It consists of a large number of photograph albums/scrapbooks and many loose photographs and ephemera relating to the GA excursions from the 1890s to the 1970s.

Unlike many other geological organizations of the time ‘Ladies’ were eligible for membership of the Association from its formation in 1858, and as a consequence, many of the early women geoscientists are represented in photographs and signatures. There was also no age limit so children were allowed to join, today a highly popular junior club called Rockwatch carries on this tradition.

Bob McIntosh

Richard Cox Gough, 1826-1902, Proprietor of Gough's Cave, Somerset.

Richard Cox Gough

A now partially faded photograph of Richard Cox Gough from the Geologists' Association Carreck Archive.
Gough was the cavern proprietor of Gough's Cave, a large and impressive stalactite/stalagmite filled cave in Cheddar, Somerset later also to become famous for 'Cheddar Man'. Genealogy information is available.

Signature of Richard Cox Gough - what a flourish!

Bob McIntosh

Raising a block of Portland Stone from the Seacombe Quarry, Worth Maltravers, Dorset

BGS image ID: P023962

Raising a block of Portland Stone from the Seacombe Quarry, Worth Matravers, Dorset. The block, cut from the face of the quarry by the plug and feathers method weighs about 4.5 tons. One of the advantages that the Portland Stone quarries have over other producers is the large size of the limestone blocks that can be produced. The limestone quarries of Portland Bill have been in operation since Roman times. The characteristic white limestones which have proved to be extremely durable, even in the most polluted of urban environments, can be found in important buildings in all major cities and most large towns in the United Kingdom.

The Isle of Purbeck, though perhaps more famous as the source of the fossiliferous Purbeck Marble, is also a major producer of Portland Stone. The same succession of worked beds - Basebed, Whitbed and Roach - that outcrop in the Isle of Portland extends into the Purbeck area. Many of the quarries in the Isle of Purbeck were sited along the coastal cliffs and the stone was worked via an extensive series of underground galleries.

BGS Old photograph number A4985
Date of photograph: 1930.
Photographer: J. Rhodes

Bob McIntosh

Frank Perret, 1867-1943. 1936 Royal Society Montserrat Expedition.

BGS image ID: P536925

Frank A. Perret, 1867-1943. 1936 Royal Society Montserrat Expedition.

Frank Perret started out as a electrical engineer but later turned to volcanology spending 10 years studying Mount Pelée, Martinique from the start of the 1929-1932 eruption.

The image is from the The Archibald Gordon MacGregor Archive. In 1936 the Royal Society in collaboration with the Colonial Office organized an expedition to Montserrat to study the geology and investigate the earthquakes and soufrière activity that had caused damage in the previous two years. The personnel on the expedition were Dr C F Powell and Dr A G MacGregor.

Bob McIntosh

Fairy Glen, Rosemarkie Glen, Ross & Cromarty

BGS Image ID:  P000471

Fairy Glen, The Dens, 1.6 km. north of Fortrose, on the southern side of Rosemarkie Glen. Ross & Cromarty.

The protective remains of soil and vegetation on the pillars was once continuous with that seen in background, and serves as an index to the amount of material removed by denudation. Once the protective cover is removed, erosion is rapid. Photographed about 1910 before the present-day tree cover was established. Glacial sands overlying boulder clay filling old valley and now being eroded by the present Rosemarkie Burn and by the direct action of rain, giving rise to earth pillars.

BGS Old photograph number: C01882

Bob McIntosh

Hercules and his fig leaf

  

BGS image ID: P807851

This picture shows the fig leaf that used to be part of the statue of Hercules that is now at BGS Keyworth. The statue was installed in the Museum of Practical Geology in Jermyn Street , London in 1851. The story goes that the wife of the then Director of the Geological Survey and Museum, Archibald Geikie, objected to Hercules’s nudity. This resulted in the statue’s genitals being removed and a fig leaf being attached in 1883.


BGS image ID: P685329

The genitals were stored in a velvet-lined mahogany box for over 90 years. In 1977 the genitals were reattached and the fig leaf was put in the mahogany box. In 1982 Hercules was moved to Keyworth.
 

BGS image ID: P808617

 Andrew L Morrison

La Soufrière, St Vincent, 1902




BGS image ID: P730640

This photograph captioned "East side of Soufrière, showing trees levelled by the blast" is part of an album of photographs of La Soufrière and Mount Pelée taken by Tempest Anderson.

Anderson was born in 1846 at York and was educated at St Peter’s School, York and University College London. He qualified as an ophthalmic surgeon and was for a time a consultant at York County Hospital. In his spare time he did a lot of travelling and was especially interested in visiting and photographing active volcanoes. In 1902 he was part of the Royal Society expedition to St Vincent and Martinique to study La Soufrière and Pelée. Anderson died on 26 August 1913 on his way back from an expedition to the volcanoes of Indonesia and the Philippines.

Andrew L Morrison

Vesuvius eruption August 7th 1886 by H.J. Johnston-Lavis

BGS image ID: P640525

Vesuvius eruption August 7th 1886 by  H.J. Johnston-Lavis.

Description below image reads: Instantaneous photo of same subject as Nos 8 and 9. taken with a narrow-angle lens at the moment of an explosion of vapour, stones and ash. August 7th 1886.

Johnston Lavis was born in 1856 and died in 1914. Educated at University College, London, he was Professor of Volcanology at the Royal University of Naples. He produced a map of Vesuvius in 1891.

Bob McIntosh

Kemnay Quarries. Aberdeenshire. Sett-makers working in their individual huts, locally called scathies.

BGS image ID: P000135

Kemnay Quarries. Aberdeenshire. Sett-makers working in their individual huts, locally called scathies. Two sett-makers hard at work. They work with hammer and chisel on roughly made sand-filled tables. Light railway lines can be seen in the foreground behind the finished granite setts.

Original BGS photograph number: C3759
Photographer: W.D. Fisher
Date of photograph 1939