Digression – Science Non-fiction good reads

Still working on the Brigus cross-section which I have nicknamed “the beast” because of its size and challenges but I look forward to the challenges it brings me.  It’s unlike anything I have done so far.

I am hoping to get it finished soon.  I have been down with a bad cold all week so not getting much painting done, haven’t been to work either. 

Even though my full-time job limits my painting time I do enjoy working at the QEII Library.  I have easy access to the majority of Howley’s papers as well as inspiring geological maps and reports from all over Newfoundland and the world.  I love going to the 4^th floor to browse the QE section (in Library of Congress terms, these are the classification letters for the subject of geology) and I’ve found some great reading up there.

•           The Dating Game, the story of Arthur Holmes who championed the plate tectonic theory of Wegner.  His book, the Principles of Geology published in 1944 was recognized as the most concise work of its day and was used as a text book in universities, I have a second edition. 
•          The Map that Changed the World, a biography of William Smith who created the first geological map of Great Britain in the early 1800’s.
•          The Man Who Found Time, the story of James Hutton a Scottish farmer and trained doctor who, in the late 1700s, recognized that the Earth was much older than was first believed and was created by forces of nature not the hand of God.

The Library holds some volumes of Hutton’s Theory of the Earth.  I’ve been reading volume III this week. In 1787 he spent a period of time studying the rocks of Arran Island in the south west of Scotland and I was intrigued by his descriptions about how the island was formed.  Here’s a few quotes, completely void of jargon and a little naïve but it was 1787 after all, groundbreaking and controversial stuff for that time!

            “No idea can be formed of the shape of this island, when first proceeding from the bowels of the earth or bottom of the sea.  Neither is it possible to say how much has been already worn away from the tops of the granite mountains…”

            “We are thus led to believe that the island of Arran and the shire of Ayr had been  raised from the bottom of the sea at the same time, or in the operation of the same causes ; and that therefore these two coasts were once continuous land, which was afterwards preyed upon by the water, and disjoined by the sea.”

            “…that all those valleys which intervene between those decaying mountains had been hollowed out of the solid rocks by the hands of Nature operating for the purpose of this world, or in the course of time, by causes which continue to produce the same effect.”

Back to the studio…