Accessions and curiosities
A miscellany from the Society Library and Archive
Geoscientist 19.1 January 2009
Possible piton?
This is a painting by Richard Tongue dated 1835 showing what appear to be sailors planting a British flag on top of a rock formation with a black figure in the foreground - so possibly in the West Indies. It is like one of the Pitons in St Lucia, but apparently no one had climbed them by 1835.
Three of Tongue's paintings were in the RA exhibition and Bernard Nurse, former librarian of the Royal Society of Antiquaries is writing his entry for the Oxford DNB. The artist is not known to have travelled beyond Wales and Scotland - so Bernard would be interested to know what it represents. Bernard says of his subject: "He was not always absolutely accurate and liked to put a romantic gloss on his work but I am hoping that someone might be able to identify the scene!".Any ideas please to edmundnurse@btinternet.com.
JAK-up
Mr Michael Falcon has donated a cartoon by JAK that was presented to his father Norman Falcon on his retirement from BP. The caption reads: "We're getting a tremendous amount of (natural) gas from Scarborough!" To the bottom left, JAK writes: "To Norman Falcon with best wishes for a "better 'ole" from JAK"
Back tickets – In Norman Falcon's hand: "Presented to Norman Falcon on his retirement from the company. BP found the first gas in the North Sea in 1965"
Rope of office
This delicately embroidered "chain of office" was once the property of the Director of the Indian Geological Survey, Sir Lewis Leigh Fermor (pictured). It was presented to the Society by Richard Bateman, former Executive Secretary, to whom it had passed through Lady Fermor's executor, the late Prof. Bob Savage, on her death.
Uzbek volume
Prof. John C W Cope presents a copy of Palaeontological atlas of Phanerozoic faunas and floras of Uzbekistan / A I Kim [et al.] (eds.), published by Tashkent: State Committee on Geology and Mineral Resources, 2007. (in 2 vols). This English version underwent a combined scientific and literary edit by John and fellow staff of the Department of Geology, National Museum of Wales, UK, headed by Prof. Mike Bassett.