John

Another early-ish model that comes to mind is that of Eigg by Archibald Geikie; if memory serves me correctly, David Oldroyd discusses it as a historical source, in his 1999 paper 'Non-written sources in the history of geology [...], Annals of Science vol 56 395-415,
DOI:10.1080/000337999296355
I'm not sure if it has been traced since David wrote about it.
Mike


From: The Geological Curator's Group mailing list [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of John Faithfull [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 13 April 2016 16:39
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Early 3D geological map/models?

Hi folks,

Apologies in advance for this long ramble/query, but it might be of interest to one or two...

I've just been curating an old, and as it transpires, very interesting old papier-mache 3D geological relief map/model of Arran, created by Andrew Crombie Ramsay for the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting at Glasgow in 1840. It was based on Ramsay's own geological mapping, which later led to the book " The Geology of the Island of Arran", published a little later.

At this time, Ramsay was working in a textile shop in Glasgow's east end, and had no formal geological training, although he had met and become friendly with several geologists and other scientists.

You can see a few quik'n'nasty pictures of our model here:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4pdQwoxkyr2N2ZnUHVVaVNWTVk

The scientific suppliers R Griffin apparently went on to sell copies of the model: the museum of the Museum of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland had one in 1843. Henry De La Beche bought one for the museum (presumably of Practical Geology?) and also employed the maker Ramsay shortly after. Ramsay went on to become FRS, Director-General of the Geological Survey, and was eventually knighted.

Does anybody else have one of these in their collections, or recall seeing one elsewhere? If so, do you know anything about its provenance? The Arran mapping on the model is distinctive - it was soon superseded by more accurate representations of the geology, which are used on later models by others. Also, the papier-mache is much lighter than later plaster models. It's quite big: 123x70x9cm in it's wooden/glass case.

Also, while I'm on the scrounge for information, does anybody know of any older large scale relief maps showing 3D geology? I know of older mine and abstract models, but not of actual geological maps. Murchison, Thomas Sopwith and others seem to have discussed/made models in the late 1830s-1840s, and I haven't yet followed up all their threads.

Any info/help gratefully received

Cheers

John


Dr JW Faithfull
Curator (Mineralogy/Petrology)

The Hunterian
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