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| Text modified for legibility Image color-adjusted from scan (unfortunately, the paper's texture still partly remains) Click image to view larger |
Date: 1831
Format: Drawn in a letter to Adam Sedgwick. Versions also sent to Greenough and Turner.
Description: A cartoon from the opening months of the Devonian Controversy, drawn in letters sent to some of his friends. De la Beche contemplated lithographing it for wider circulation. Again he was upset with geologists valuing theory over observation, but his general conviction was made more urgent in this case because the theorists were attacking his observations. He was vexed over his treatment at a recent meeting of the Geological Society, when the results of his own field work were impugned by Lyell and Murchison on theoretical grounds.
In his letter to Sedgwick containing the sketch, De la Beche wrote of the underlying incident with indignity: "Murchison and Lyell, who confessedly never saw a square yard of the country [in Devon], attacked me most fiercely, particularly the latter, declaring their perfect conviction that I had made a gross mistake as to the geological position of the beds [....] Now as I had toiled day after day, for months in the district, examining every hole and cranny in it, this was a pretty good go of preconceived opinions against facts, which are so plain that the merest infant in geology could make no mistake.
For more on Murchison, see his entry on the biography page.
For more on Lyell, see his entry.
Unmodified versions:
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| The above image with original text preserved Click image to see larger |
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| The reproduction used on the History of Geology blog, and used in this site's banner. I like the lines a little better. The image is unfortunately cut-off a little on the right. Click image to see larger |
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Sources & further discussion:
McCartney, Paul J. (1977). Henry De la Beche: Observations on an Observer. Friends of the National Museum of Wales.
Image yoinked from:
McCartney, Paul J. (1977). Henry De la Beche: Observations on an Observer. Friends of the National Museum of Wales.
The version in the site's banner yoinked from:
Bressem, D. October 14, 2011. "Geology History in Caricatures: Exploring and Educating Geohistory". On the History of Geology blog. Link [historyofgeology.fieldofscience.com].
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