William Smith, the ‘father of English geology’, is famous for creating the first geological map of a country – the ‘Map that changed the world.’ One of his famous geological maps of England and Wales now hangs in our entrance hall at Burlington House, where visitors still flock to see it. But what did he … Continue reading
Category Archives: History
Shedding light on the mystery of the Library’s ‘Pilkington Glass’ chandeliers
Visitors to the Library of the Geological Society often ask about our stunning chandeliers, but up until now we’ve not been able to tell them much. It depends on who you ask – rumour has it that they are made from Pilkington Glass, while others state that in fact they were gifts from the Pilkington … Continue reading
Publishing maps: a cautionary tale
Visitors to the building may notice an addition to the Lower Library – a display about the fortunes and misfortunes of one the UK’s most famous geologists never to be a Fellow, William Smith. Smith’s most celebrated achievement, the first geological map of a complete country, now hangs in our entrance hall, but he didn’t … Continue reading
Sedimentary my dear Watson?
During the last month or so, I’ve been cataloguing the ‘Merriman Collection’ (ref: LDGSL/1088) from our archives. The collection of 412 glass lantern slides, primarily dating from 1880s-1910s, was donated to the Society by Mrs Mary Merriman in 2002 after being found languishing in a garden shed for decades. Around half of the slides relate … Continue reading
Valentine, By a Palaeontologist
Edward Forbes (1815 – 1854), former President of the Society, was apparently a bit of a dabbler in poetry. His ‘Valentine, By a Palaeontologist’ was read at a GSL dinner on 14 February 1845, by which time Forbes had given up his role as curator of the Society’s museum to become a palaeontologist for the … Continue reading
A tale of three meetings
The Geological Society’s meeting room has changed a lot in the last century. Until a refurb in the seventies, it looked very much how it had done for most of its life – raked rows of benches standing opposite each other, an impressive throne (which now sits forlornly in a corner outside my office) at … Continue reading
Murchison’s Peacetime Map of Siluria
Sir Roderick Impey Murchison spent much of the early 1830s stomping round Wales and the West Midlands immersed in an oceanic world of metre-long sea scorpions. A world which later gave rise to both leeches and creatures with backbones. Above the waters, plants began to grow on Avalonia. It was the dawn of the age of … Continue reading
Early Geological Social Networking
When I imagine the early geological map-makers, I think of men on grand tours, taking geological hammers to prise fragments of rock from exposed strata. Late at night they’d examine their findings by candlelight, take notes and draw sketch maps, later to be incorporated into the great cartographic works they published and left to us … Continue reading
The origins of plate tectonics
This week, we’ve been uploading clips from Richard Thomas’ film ‘Dan McKenzie and friends’, which looks at the early history of the theory of plate tectonics. It’s easy to forget that plate tectonics, an idea we’re all familiar with at least on a basic level, isn’t all that old. It wasn’t until the 1960s that … Continue reading
Communicating geology in the digital age
When the news broke on Friday that a new Icelandic eruption could be on the way, it didn’t take long for it to spread. This hasn’t always been the case. In its early years, the physics of geological communication was simple – involving nothing more than oscillations of pressure transmitted through a gas – talking. Continue reading
The Geological Society Blog 