Ireland
Extract from Greenough’s copy of ‘Map of the Leinster coal district and the surrounding country' by Richard Griffith for the Dublin Society, (1814). (Greenough collection, ref: LDGSL/947/6/F/3)
Richard Griffith from Archibald Geikie’s ‘Life of Sir Roderick Murchison’ (1875). GSL Library collections.
RICHARD GRIFFITH'S GEOLOGICAL MAP OF IRELAND
Until recently the earliest known geological map of the whole of Ireland was thought to be that published in the ‘Atlas to accompany the second Report of the Railway Commissioners of Ireland’, 1838. Yet the map’s author, Richard Griffith (1784-1878), had been working on the map from at least 1811 initially in collaboration with his friend George Bellas Greenough, who was keen for it to be a companion to his own planned ‘Geological Map of England & Wales’.
In between multiple official roles surveying parts of Ireland, Griffith worked on various drafts of his geological map. An early version was compiled for a series of lectures he gave at the Dublin Society in March 1814. At the end of the previous year Griffith had written to Greenough complaining that Alexander Taylor’s map of Ireland was on too small a scale for public exhibition, and asked if Greenough could send him Aaron Arrowsmith's much larger map. Additionally, could Greenough also pencil in any geological observations that he had made during the two men’s travels around Galway and Mayo in the summer? This Greenough did in February 1814, but requesting that a copy be sent back to him for his own records.
Left: Geological colouring on Taylor's 'A New Map of Ireland', [1813-1820s]. (Greenough collection, ref: LDGSL/947/6/F/4)
Right: Richard Griffith’s ‘A general map of Ireland to accompany the report of the Railway Commissioners...' (1837) from 'Outline of the geology of Ireland' (1838). GSL Library collections.
The map on the left is coloured upon the base map, 'A New Map of Ireland', by Alexander Taylor, published by William Faden in 1793 - one of the maps referenced by Griffith in his letter to Greenough. There is a handwritten key and some notes by Greenough but the colouring, which has faded, is rather neat and unlike any of Greenough’s own hand coloured maps which are more loosely rendered. The key indicates only nine rock categories - as opposed to the more sophisticated 20 units which are on Griffith’s map of 1838.
Left: Thomas Weaver’s Geological Map of the East of Ireland, [1818] from Weaver, T, “Memoir on the Geological Relations of the East of Ireland”, Transactions of the Geological Society of London, S1, vol 5, 1821.
Right: Alexander Nimmo's map of Connemara [c.1813]. (Greenough collection, ref: LDGSL/947/6/F/2). Alexander Nimmo (1783-1832) was another geological surveyor whom Greenough met whilst in Ireland in 1813. Nimmo’s map of Connemara comprises eight lithological units.
The lithology bears some similarity to that which appears on the ‘Geological Map of the East of Ireland' [1818] by Thomas Weaver (1773-1855) who, coincidentally, Griffith accused of plagiarism. Weaver had attended one of Griffith’s lectures in 1816 and, according to Griffith, Weaver’s map reproduced virtually all of his then map’s geological boundaries with only a few additions.
The early lithology combined with Greenough's annotations and the colouring undertaken by a third party would indicate that this is the collaborative map which the two men drafted in 1814. The earliest geological map of Ireland.