I have been sent some photos relating to British geological sites by a gentleman who recently acquired them. He wants to remain anonymous, but is happy for the images to be reproduced here. They seem to have been made by a professional slide maker called AT Davies, but it is a mystery whether he is the same "Davies" who seems to have worked with Teall and Cunnington around 1870 - 1890 in the collecting and examination of igneous fragments from Stonehenge.
The thin section reproduced here, labelled as a diabase from Stonehenge, is at two different magnifications and seen through crossed polars. It is probably not an "official" slide" in that it has no Geological Survey or Natural History Museum number.
In their paper about HH Thomas in 2018, Richard Bevins and Rob Ixer say as follows:
Maybe it is a different Davies, since the owner of the slide says that AT Davies became a fellow of the RMS in 1916 -- so that would date the slide to that date at the earliest. But it is possible that this slide will have been seen by HH Thomas while he was working on his Stonehenge bluestones paper which was published in 1923.
Alfred Thomas Davies lived from 1850 to 1934. The slide is labelled "diabase", and I assume it is unspotted dolerite with an ophitic texture -- but I stand to be corrected. (When I studied optical mineralogy I hated it with a passion, and absorbed virtually no information! Ixer and Bevins would be appalled at my lack of judgment....!!) But that was a very long time ago.
Here is a picture of the little cabinet of slides -- the labelling is somewhat erratic, but there is some interesting material in there!
2 comments:
The Cunnington dynasty, starting with William in the early 19th Century, were important pioneers of archaeology in Britain.
WANHM Volume 33 gives a report on Gowlands excavations with a follow on report by Judd on the nature and origin of rock fragments found during the excavations.
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