Thomas George Bonney

“ In his seventeenth year he joined University College, London, where he was attracted to science and chemistry. At the age of eighteen he entered his father's office, but though most conscientious in his attention to business, he devoted every spare moment to science, working till late in the night ; this habit, and living too sparingly so that he might spend more on books and instruments for his studies, probably did harm to his constitution, for though he lived to be old he was far from a healthy man. ”

“ As my wanderings among the mountains had led me over most of the great roads across the main chain, I was naturally anxious to visit a work which will so effectually elude the dangers of the storm and the avalanche, and open in summer and winter alike "a way to friend and foe." ”

“ The celebrated Mullion Cove is the end of a valley which very nearly defines the northern limit of this mass of serpentine; it is, however, cut everywhere through the hornblende schist. The actual junction is masked by debris; so this also is inconclusive.
The serpentine at the northern end varies: most of it is dark dull green to black; but in one place it assumes a redder tint. A common variety has a dark, almost black, matrix, full of small scales of glittering mineral, similar to, but darker than, those at Pradanack (no. 8) . A fine sea-cave here well repays a visit. ”

“ His father, Henry Sorby, was a partner in the firm of John and Henry Sorby, edge-tool makers, and his mother, Amelia Lambert, a woman of much force of character, was a Londoner. Sorby received his early education at a private school in Harrogate and at the collegiate school, Sheffield. After leaving school he read mathematics at home with a tutor, who fostered his love of natural science. He also practised drawing in water-colour, of which in later life he made much use. Sorby, of independent means, determined to devote himself to a career of original investigation. ”

“ His field work was admirable in quality, for he was no less patient than accurate in unravelling a complicated district — one of those men, in short, who lay the foundations on which his successors can build, and whose services to British geology are more lasting than showy. ”

“ Here a lofty cliff of serpentine is shattered by veins of gabbro, one of which, about ten feet thick, forms a sort of terrace, some height above the shore, which can be reached with a little difficulty; the gabbro is extremely coarse, the diallage crystals being often two or three inches long; and some of the largest occur in a vein only a few inches thick. Just on the left there appears to be a small fault in the serpentine; on the right is a large included mass of schist forming a headland, down to which descends a dyke of dark compact trap about a foot wide. ”

“ In his new office his services were of great value, not only for his extensive knowledge of Irish geology, but also from his straightforward honesty and genial disposition, which enabled him to diminish friction and to promote cordial co-operation in official circles.
His health proved to be permanently injured, and he died of acute bronchitis on 13 April 1883. His contributions to the literature of geology, practically restricted to the memoirs published by the Survey, indicate his powers and his thoroughness as a geological observer. ”

“ As may be inferred, he was often involved in controversy, but he seemed to enjoy an intellectual battle, the stress of which never ruffled the course of friendship for more than a moment, so that his death, in the full vigour of his powers, was not only a loss to science but also to numerous friends. ”

“ After a serious illness he spent two years in a mercantile house at Civita Vecchia, returning to England in 1851, when he joined his father's business of carver and guilder, studying at the school of design, Somerset House. Next year he followed his brother Henry to the Royal School of Mines, gaining at the end of the two years' course the duke of Cornwall's and the council's scholarships. In 1854 he studied at the mining school of Freiberg in Saxony, and late in the autumn both brothers left England for India with appointments on its geological survey. ”

“ Sir Charles Lyell, who first met Macculloch about 1825, speaking from the chair of the Geological Society, bears a less grudging testimony to Macculloch's talents. ‘The influence exerted by them [his writings] on the progress of our science has been powerful and lasting, yet they have been less generally admired and studied than they deserve. ”

“ Thin veins of serpentine often show in the latter; and films of the same not seldom coat joint-faces. The dyke seen in the cliff may be taken as a type of the former. On microscopic examination it proves to be a felspar basalt,—the plagioclase being, as a rule, clear, though with polarized light dull in colour, the augite little changed, and dull green spots replacing probably the olivine. There are also grains of magnetite, with brown stains from one of the other ferric oxides; and cracks are overspread by an infiltrated serpentinous mineral. ”

“ In 1860 he started on his own account in Liverpool as architect and civil engineer and built up a good business, being architect to the Liverpool school board during its existence from 1870 to 1902, and laying out the Blundellsands estate in 1868, on which he resided from 1868 till death. He died at his house, Park Corner, Blundellsands, on 26 May 1909, and was buried at Sefton, Lancashire.
Always fond of natural history, Reade began serious work in geology when about thirty-five years old, and lost none of the opportunities for that study which his profession offered. ”

“ Gradually Prestwich's interests concentrated on geology, and he began to study the coalfield of Coalbrookdale in Shropshire, which he described in two papers read before the Geological Society of London. The second of them at once established his reputation as a geologist. While in London he settled down to that close study, first of the Eocene and then of the Pliocene deposits, on which were founded his most important contributions to science. ”

“ The exploration of the Brixham Cave was begun in 1858, under the auspices of the Royal and the Geological Societies of London. This proved man to be contemporary with several large extinct animals, and the work in Kent's Hole at Torquay furnished additional evidence, with many new and important particulars. The latter place had been partially investigated by the Rev. J. MacEnery, the results of whose work had been received with general incredulity, and by Pengelly himself, with some local assistance, in 1846 ”

“ Proceeding onwards, we observe that the shore, where free from sand, consists of serpentine with intrusive veins of the newer gabbro. These become more numerous as we approach the main mass of gabbro, which is reached about a quarter of a mile from the end of the village. In plan this is an irregular oval, a little more than four miles long and two wide, which forms the elevated upland of of Crousa Down, some 300 feet above the sea. The line of the raised beach is well marked by a low cliff, and in one place by a projecting rocky plateau of considerable extent a short distance above sea-level. ”

“ As a geologist Morton was characterised by accuracy, thoroughness, orderliness, and caution, he cared more for the advancement of science than for his own reputation, and was a worthy representative of a class the painstaking and indefatigable local geologists to whom the science is so much indebted. ”

“ He published several other important papers on the microscopic structure of rocks, notably his presidential addresses in 1879 and 1880 to the Geological Society on the structure of stratified rocks ; only three months before his death he communicated to that society a paper dealing with the quantitative study of rocks ; and last, but not least, he studied the microscopic structure of irons and steels, with results of great industrial value. This study was begun to illustrate meteorites, and it proved the latter to be a mixture when molten which became a compound on cooling. ”

“ Several small grains of picotite occur, and a good many crystals of rounded exterior and platy structure—the same which is so conspicuous to the eye by its bright metallic lustre. The rock is clearly an altered olivine rock; and on applying polarized light we see that a few grains of that mineral yet remain unchanged. The metallic mineral is all or almost all enstatite, though part of it is rather altered, and converted into a kind of serpentine ”

“ His leisure was devoted to the study of geology, on which subject he published some twenty-three papers, nine of them appearing in the ‘Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society.’ These deal with the granite of Dartmoor, the carboniferous, and the new red sandstone rocks of Devonshire, and the Cheshire saltfield. Others were published in the ‘Transactions’ of the Devonshire Association, of which he was an original member. But he will be more gratefully remembered by geologists for his exhaustive index to the ‘Transactions,’ ‘Proceedings,’ and ‘Quarterly Journal’ of the Geological Society. ”

“ Going into business as a house decorator, he devoted every spare minute to his favourite study, exploring the country round Liverpool, and pushing his researches into North Wales and Shropshire. He formed a large and valuable collection of fossils, of which those from the Trias downwards have been acquired by the British Museum of Natural History, and the remainder by the Liverpool University College. ”

“ The serpentine in the cove beyond is mottled light and dark green. This rock now continues to form the cliffs above the sea for some distance. About half mile from Cadgwith (measured in a straight line) the shore is strewn with huge boulders and overhung by cliffs of a dark serpentine. ”

“ There is no enstatite or diallage recognizable; but some fair-sized scales of a very dark brown and all but opaque mineral, whose cracks are filled by colourless serpentine, may have been some such mineral. With crossed prisms the larger strings vary from opaque to a pale milky grey; the smaller, commonly, have a distinct golden tinge, and the interspaces are dark or very pale dull milky grey. ”

“ In 1872 he found himself able to retire from business, and thus to indulge the desire of his life, and devote his whole time to scientific studies. But in June 1874, on the death of John Phillips (1800-1874) [q. v.] , he was offered the chair of geology at Oxford, which after some hesitation he accepted. It was late in life to begin to teach, and Prestwich was not naturally a facile speaker or lecturer, but he threw himself vigorously into his new duties and the cause of scientific education in the university. ”

“ Granules of magnetite [5] are scattered about; and there are some very irregular grains or plates of a brown hornblende, full in many parts of a black dust. This mineral appears, from its cleavage, to have a platy structure. In the coarser specimen there appears still more actinolite, and the brown hornblende grains are much larger; they appear in some cases to have been broken or partly destroyed after they had been formed. The mineral to the eye has a clove-brown colour; it much resembles anthophyllite, but is certainly not an orthorhombic mineral ”

“ He made a special study of the corals and echinids, taking also much interest in the ophiurids, sponges, and protozoa, regarding all questions from the point of view not only of the philosophical zoologist, but also of one who applied the distribution of species to elucidate ancient physical geography. He described the fossil coral fauna of Malta, Java, Hindustan, Australia, Tasmania, and the West Indies, the echinids of Sind, and of other countries. ”

“ This rock also shows a banded structure.
On the eastern side of the headland we come at once on the serpentine as the predominant rock, though it is broken through by many veins of coarse gabbro. The mineral composition of these resembles that just described. Some are of considerable thickness; but others die away as mere strings. The material of the gabbro, therefore, must have been injected in a very fluid condition, and, as even the strings are coarsely crystalline, must have made its way into rock of high temperature, and have cooled down very slowly. ”

“ Geology was now almost laid aside for meteorology, in which science he became so distinguished that in the last-named year he was appointed meteorological reporter to the government of Bengal, and was placed in charge of an office to give storm warnings as well as make observations in the presidency. ”

“ About two thirds or more of the field is occupied by crystalline grains of hornblende of rather irregular outline, with very characteristic cleavage, of a green colour, and strongly dichroic. There are many small rounded or vermicular grains of a black mineral, probably magnetite, often included in the hornblende, occasional small rounded or subangular grains of clear quartz, and a few small acicular hexagonal crystals, probably apatite. The rest of the field is occupied by a kaolinized or altered felspathic mineral, which seems, in parts, as if it had never been perfectly crystallized. ”

“ PRESTWICH, Sir JOSEPH (1812–1896) , geologist, the eldest surviving son of Joseph Prestwich, a wine merchant in London, and of Catherine, daughter of Edward Blakeway of Broseley, was born at Pensbury, Clapham, on 12 March 1812. He was descended from an old Lancashire family, which lived, till the troubles of the civil war, at Hulme Hall, on the banks of the Irwell, now part of Manchester. The last owner, Thomas Prestwich, was created a baronet on 25 April 1644 by Charles I for services to the royal cause, and it was believed that Joseph Prestwich was in reality heir to the title. ”