through long spans of time, often from prehistory into the almost present day. In Britain, one immedi- ately thinks of the Moughton Whetstone horizon of the Upper Ordovician or Austwick in Craven, a dis- tinctly colour-banded siltstone which can be recog- nized wherever it was taken in the north of England by itinerant Moors, not too different from the main bands which were worked for the familiar mill- stones. Recently, however, a new source has been drawn to our attention through an account by Stanes and Edwards of an industry in the Black- down Hills of Devon (Fig. l), producing whet- stones from the local outcrop of the Upper Greensand around Blackborough (Stanes & Edwards, Report & Transactions of the Devonshire Association, v. 125, p. 71, 1993).

In this area, the Upper Greensand rests with unconformity upon the Mercia Mudstones of the Trias, and pass up into the Chalk. The sands are shallow-water deposits, some well cemented, others soft and friable, some fossiliferous, others barren. The horizons sought out for whetstones are sands containing sandstone concretions, the extra silica

~ i ~ , 1. ne simplified geology of the western Blackdown Hills, showing known locations of whetstone working.

km 0 1 2 : *" :4. .. AWLI SCOMBE --I : : (( *... .... 9 10 *: 1 1 i 12 ' 1 3. 14 15

* kk

1 - . I . A_-- I - I I

OUATERNARY AND ?TERTIARY PLATEAU DEPOSITS (OTHER DRIFT DEPOSITS OMITTED)

TRIASSIC ROCKS (MAINLY RED CLAY)

UPPERGRtENSANO

EXTENT OF OLD WHETSTONE WORKINGS SHOWN THUS * * * SELECTED PARISH NAMES THUS. f k N I T 0 N

SELECTED PARISH BOUNDARIES. * . ' * . . . . * *

apparently being derived from sponge spicules. All of this becomes apparent from thin sections made from the Blackborough whetstones by the Geologi- cal Survey in the course of this investigation, which has several satisfactory aspects to report. For exam- ple, this is an industry which runs through historic times, commencing roughly with the record of a shipment of '200 dozen scythe-stones' bound for Bristol in 1690, as set down in the Bridgewater Port Book of that year. There are several mentions of a local industry in whetstones through the eighteenth century, culminating in several accounts by well- known early nineteenth-century geologists. DeLuc, the French traveller, visited the workings with Henry Fitton in 181 1, followed by others seeking the well-preserved silicified fossils of the same hori- zons. As the concretion-bearing sands were fol- lowed around the hill slopes and exploited from adits cut into the outcrop, large accumulations of white-sand waste built up below the horizon to such an extent that the scar was visible for miles around the upstanding cliff of the Blackdown Hills. Here is how it was described by Fitton in 1836: 'The es- carpment between Punchydown on the north and Upcot Pen in the south is distinguishable at a great distance by the white line produced by the refuse thrown down from the openings of the scythestone pits, the heaps thus formed constituting an almost continuous horizontal stripe on the face of the hill.'

As a local industry, the whetstones from the Greensand survived the early competition of carborundum composite stones in the years 1908-1 1, but by 1929 the last of the local miners had given up active work and production died out completely. It remains for these particular stones to be recognized and recorded when they turn up in industrial archaeological excavations in farmsteads and agricultural settings. Thousands of whetstones must have been taken up by two centuries of har- vesting, doubtless to survive as distinctive shapes however worn down and degraded they may have become with use. The existence of this account of the history of workings and the petrographic de- scription given in the accompanying Appendix by Edwards will make the future recording all the more straightforward.

IRELAND: Fossil collection repatriated Matthew A. Parkes (Geological Survey of Ire- land) and Steve Tunnicliff (British Geological Survey) write: Whilst the news has been filled with political developments in Northern Ireland, there has recently been a significant move of a different kind, but with an equally long history behind it. It, too, signals a healthy co-operation between Euro- pean partners, and a pragmatic approach by the British Geological Survey to their stewardship of an Irish fossil collection under changing, or rather im- proving, conditions.

During the period 1845-1889, the Geological Survey of Ireland, then a branch of the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom, led the way in many aspects of geological mapping in Britain and Ire- land. As part of the process, fossil collectors were employed to assist the geologists in collecting exani- ples of all fossils that could be found. A significant

172IGEOLOGY T O D A Y September-October 1994

collection was amassed in this way, being sent to the Survey offices in Dublin, where the best, tablet- mounted examples of every species were displayed in various museums at different times. Other ‘dupli- cate’ specimens were distributed to the then Queen’s Colleges in Cork, Galway and Belfast. Fur- ther specimens were sent to the Geological Survey offices in London, many during the short period when J. W. Salter was the palaeontologist to the Irish Survey.

The completion of the mapping of Ireland in the late 1880s led to a relative decline of palaeontology as a discipline in the Irish context, with the then Director, Edward Hull, claiming that ‘Little now re- mains to be done in Irish Palaeontology except to add to the collections from time to time from new openings.’

In 1924, after the coming of independence, the fossil collection suffered a further blow. Space was demanded for new government offices, and the en- tire fossil and rock and mineral collection was hur- riedly crated up and dispersed to storage. The full story of all the collections will be the subject of a chapter in the official history of the GSI to be pub- lished in 1995 as part of the 150th anniversary cel- ebrations. However, it is only in recent decades that the collection has again become accessible, after considerable efforts by some GSI officers. It was largely unpacked into purpose-built cabinets in the late 1970s and moved to the new purpose-built Sur- vey premises at Beggars Bush in 1983. Since that time the .%urator, Andrew Sleeman, has invested significant resources in setting up a database and curating some of the more important fossils, includ- ing many of the type and figured specimens.

In 1968, the fossils from the six counties of Northern Ireland were given to the Geological Sur- vey of Nortl$ern Ireland, which then deposited them in the Ulster Museum. The exceptions to this are the many specimens in the Portlock Collection, which had been sent to the London offices of the Geological Survey in the 1860s. These were mostly from the Lower Palaeozoic inlier at Pomeroy, and were catalogued by Steve Tunnicliff in 1980.

In July of this year a new project commenced, funded by the National Heritage Council in Ireland. This is a state body, which disburses funds to a wide variety of projects concerning the restoration or presexvation of ‘heritage’ in a broad sense. The full

Fig. 2. Homeward bound: paclung the returning specimens.

Fig. 1. Britain and Ireland at peace: Matthew Parkes of the GSI and Steve Tunnicliff of the RGS shake hands on the repatriation deal.

funding of the project by the National Heritage Council is an encouraging recognition of the na- tional and international significance of the collec- tion, which has suffered from great indifference for over half of this century. Matthew Parkes is cur- rently curating all the outstanding specimens (over two-thirds of the total), and the records are being entered onto the computer database set up by Andrew Sleeman. By the end of 1995 the entire col- lection should be accessible for researchers to visit or borrow and a catalogue of all the type and figured material will also be published.

Not only is the collection of historical interest as part of the national heritage, it is equally an impor- tant research collection for palaeobiological re- search and revision of taxonomic groups or species, and also has relevance to the current work of the GSI. Many of the specimens, such as all the graptolites, have been examined by current special- ists to assess the age of the strata they came from and assist the current map-production programme. This can be of great importance in such areas as the Longford-Down Lower Palaeozoic inlier, where some localities are no longer available but where new sites have been discovered during recent map- ping.

The principal reason why this item came to be written is the generous transfer by the BGS of over 1500 specimens, which were sent to the British Sur- vey last century but which had not been registered into their museum collection (Figs 1 and 2). There are many which have been registered at different times for examination by researchers and these, of course, remain in the Geological Survey Collections at Keyworth, but the residual material is a welcome addition to the existing specimens in Dublin. The prospect of a long-term, stable, secure environment for the GSI fossil collection is now a reality.

GEOLOGY TODAY September-October 19941173

Photo-archive, No. 2

Surface-creep in Cambrian slate on the south side of Whitesand Bay, near St David’s, Pembrokeshire, as depicted in a photograph taken by W. Jerome Harrison in 1897. Charles Lapwoth wrote: ‘This photograph is an illustration of what is known as Surface-Creep, or the “creep of the hill’’. A steep hillside is covered with a superficial sheet, a few feet in thickness, of gravel and soil resting upon the upturned edges of cleaved rocks or slates of Cambrian age. The soil cap has moved downwards like a glacial sheet, the friction dragging back the edges of the underlying slates to a depth of several feet with a kind of shearing motion. The slates are disrupted at the joints, and those nearest the soil cap have been forced backwards and downwards into parallelism with it and probably carried on for some distance. The rock slabs deeper down have been overturned, and those least affected have been merely disrupted, the effects of the surface-creep dying out altogether at a depth of less than ten feet. This surface-creep is a common phenomenon on steep hill slopes where the underlying strata are soft and shaly, but it is rare to find it so well developed in hard rocks as in the present instance.’ ’The picture forms part (no. 2660) of the British Association Collection of geological photographs held at the British Geological Survey library at Keyworth, Nottingham.

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In future issues of Geology Today

The Soom Shale: a unique Ordovician fossil horizon in South Africa, b-v Ric/iur[/-y. Aiclridgc i o i d , OtllL‘)3 I

Impact in the Caribbean and death of the dinosaurs, by Micluzei-7. Rciiroti tj C~ispirr S. Littfd Dctcctivcr and geology i:i fiction, by Wiffium A. S. Suijcairt Frederick M‘Coy: an eminent Victorian palaeontologist and his synopses o f Irish palacontolo~y of 18.14 and 1846, by* Putrick N. LV!zlsc Jacksou & Nigci 7.. Moiiaghuu

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174lGEOLOGY TODAY September-Ociober 1994