Notes on ‘The Amateur’ in the development of British geology

Torrens, Hugh S.

doi:10.1016/s0016-7878(06)80027-1

Cited by 16 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…In Britain, Torrens (2006) has highlighted the role of the 'amateur' in the development of geology, noting that such people can have great advantages, often not being constrained by paradigms. He concludes that the often significant contributions made by such geologists should encourage the idea that the 'amateur' geologist is not 'second rate'.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

George Leslie Adkin (1888-1964): glaciation and earth movements in the Tararua Range, North Island, New Zealand

Brook

2008

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In the northern hemisphere the broad extent of glaciation had been mostly accepted by the start of the twentieth century, but in New Zealand at that time even the general picture of glaciation was uncertain. Julius von Haast had established that in the South Island the glaciers had extended out considerably from the Southern Alps, but the extent of glaciation in the North Island was unknown. Two rival viewpoints were put forward in 1909. James Park thought that there was a widespread ice sheet, which covered the South Island, Cook Strait and much of the North Island; Patrick Marshall thought that the extent of ice was much less, and argued that much of Park's evidence was spurious. The argument was 'somewhat resolved' by a young amateur geologist, Leslie Adkin, who showed that glaciation in the North Island was at most modest, and largely confined to the uppermost part of the main axial ranges. Adkin was a farmer and had no university education, but he published nearly 40 articles in scientific journals on topics as varied as Maori archaeology, and glacial and tectonic geomorphology. This article examines the evidence he adduced for the occurrence of a limited Pleistocene glaciation in the

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

George Leslie Adkin (1888-1964): glaciation and earth movements in the Tararua Range, North Island, New Zealand

Brook

2008

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“…But the problems posed by Peach's range are, strictly speaking, practical rather than fundamental (for all that they mean more work). A rather more intractable problem is how to put him in full context, given the relatively recent development of historical studies of collecting, and especially of the process of collecting (see, for instance, Knell 2000, Torrens 2006, Kohler 2007, and Taylor 2007. One could well argue that Peach expands the known diversity of collectors and their aims.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Peach, on the face of matters, fell into Torrens's (2006) category of 'outsider': someone who derived his living from outwith the field of geology but who provided significant contributions to the science in terms of material data, published papers and interconnection with the leading figures of the day. For instance, in a major review of the geology of northern Scotland, Roderick Murchison (1859) repeatedly cited the 'keen-eyed' (p. 367) Peach's collecting activities and field observations, which had provided Murchison with many critical data for his own theoretical synthesis (all too often the role of the provincial collector!).…”

Section: Charles Peach's Life and Work: An Outline Of Some Significan...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Charles W. Peach, palaeobotany and Scotland

Anderson¹,

Taylor²

2008

Geol Cur

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The move south from Wick to the city of Edinburgh in 1865, some four years after retirement from the Customs service, provided Charles W. Peach with new opportunities for fossil-collecting and scientific networking. Here he renewed and maintained his interest in natural history and made significant palaeobotanical collections from the Carboniferous of the Midland Valley of Scotland. These are distinguished by some interesting characteristics of their documentation which the following generations of fossil collectors and researchers would have done well to emulate. Many of his fossil plant specimens have not only the locality detail, but also the date, month and year of collection neatly handwritten on attached paper labels; as a result, we can follow Peach's collecting activities over a period of some 18 years or so. Comments and even illustrative sketches on the labels of some fossils give us first-hand insight into Peach's observations. Study of these collections now held in National Museums Scotland reveals a pattern of collecting heavily biased towards those localities readily accessible from the newly expanding railways which provided a relatively inexpensive and convenient means of exploring the geology of the neighbourhood of Edinburgh. Charles W. Peach had a very 'hands-on' practical approach to scientific investigation which led him to construct novel glass plates with mounted Sphenopteris cuticle, removed intact from Lower Carboniferous shales and limestones originating in West Lothian. These resemble the herbarium sheets with which he was familiar from his parallel and highly significant work on extant flora including nearshore marine algae. He also prepared hand-ground glass microscope slides, particularly of permineralised plant material from Pettycur in Fife, using whatever materials he had to hand at the time. Peach's collection raises questions about the evolution of accepted standards of documentation in private collections, in parallel with the evolution of collecting practices by the new professionals such as the workers of the Geological Survey. Its relatively rapid deposition in museums, compared to many private collections, may also have contributed to its apparently high rate of usage by contemporary workers.

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“…Admittedly this definition is still ambiguous; for instance, it includes both field and cabinet collectors (cf. Torrens 2006 , Lucas and Lucas 2014 ). Sherborn did not attempt to produce a listing of institutions either directly, or indirectly by indexing, and I therefore do not cover lists of institutions in detail (but do refer to them when relevant).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Where is the damned collection?’ Charles Davies Sherborn’s listing of named natural science collections and its successors

Taylor¹

2016

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C. D. Sherborn published in 1940, under the imprint of Cambridge University Press but at his own expense, Where is the -Collection? This idiosyncratic listing of named natural science collections, and their fates, was useful, but incomplete, and uneven in its accuracy. It is argued that those defects were inevitable, given Sherborn's age and wartime conditions, and that what might seem one of Sherborn's less impressive works was in fact a pioneering work highly influential in stimulating the production of successor works now much used in curation, and in systematic and descriptive biology and palaeontology. The book also contributed to the development of collections research in the natural sciences, and the history of collections and of museums.

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Notes on ‘The Amateur’ in the development of British geology

Cited by 16 publications

References 5 publications

George Leslie Adkin (1888-1964): glaciation and earth movements in the Tararua Range, North Island, New Zealand

George Leslie Adkin (1888-1964): glaciation and earth movements in the Tararua Range, North Island, New Zealand

Charles W. Peach, palaeobotany and Scotland

‘Where is the damned collection?’ Charles Davies Sherborn’s listing of named natural science collections and its successors

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