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Format: Drawn in a letter; evidently prints also made.
Description: Animals in a tropical land are bewildered by a sudden snow. Icebergs bob off a palm-studded coast. De la Beche looks on, shocked at the proceedings.
De la Beche, ever an opponent of large-scale theorizing, was unimpressed with Louis Agassiz's theory of continental glaciation. De le Beche drew the sketch soon after Agassiz came to England to promote the idea. He wrote in a letter to Buckland (who was an enthusiastic promoter of the theory), "...I knocked off the accompanying trifle illustrative of the sudden changes that may, according to someone, I forget who, be brought about in climate from spots on the sun. I was much too pushed for time to finish the affair, but if you will put your hand upon the lower parts of the elephants, you will see more of the effect intended, tropical vegetables and animals bothered by snow suddenly falling because of Mr. Sol’s irregularities."
De la Beche's description makes some of the interpretations of the piece offered by recent writers confusing. Some say the right of the scene is meant to be tropical and the left frigid, corresponding to Mr. Sol's eyepatch (and his heat-rays). The features in the ocean under Mr. Sol are therefore identified as icebergs rather than islands, which may be fair. But if the scene is unfinished from the bottom of the elephants down, and it is supposed to be snowing in the scene, the left/right interpretation cannot be correct. The lines that look like rain must be snow. Cartooning is a visual language, and visual conventions may have changed - it is easy speculate that before the convention of drawing snowflakes as little circles arose, they might have been depicted as lines, like rain. The entire scene, not just the right-hand side, is meant to be incongruously frigid.
McCartney (1977) suggests that the sun is a representation of royal astronomer William Herschel (who was himself an amateur geologist). He also suggests that the apes are Buckland, Lyell, and Agassiz, on the scant evidence that the monkeys have "faces" and that the smallest one seems to be wearing a barrister's wig. I personally do not think there is enough evidence to support the latter interpretation.
For more on Agassiz, see his entry on the biography page.
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Sources & further discussion:
Clary, Renee M. "Uncovering strata: an investigation into the graphic innovations of geologist Henry T. De la Beche." Thesis. (2003). pg 222. Link [digitalcommons.lsu.edu]
McCartney, Paul J. (1977). Henry De la Beche: Observations on an Observer. Friends of the National Museum of Wales.
For a description of the British reaction to glacial theory, Boylan, P. J. (1998). Lyell and the dilemma of Quaternary glaciation. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 143(1), 145-159. Link [sp.lyellcollection.org]
Briefly mentions Herschel's geologic interest: Rudwick, M. J. (1988). The great Devonian controversy: the shaping of scientific knowledge among gentlemanly specialists. University of Chicago Press.
Image yoinked from:
Clary, R. M. (2018). Can the history of geology inform geoscience education and public reception of climate change? Lessons from the history of glacial theory. Geosphere, 14(2), 642-650. Link [pubs.geoscienceworld.org]
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