Vanessa Collingridge and the team answer listenerâs historical queries and celebrate the way in which we all âmakeâ history.
Programme 8
20 November 2007
The Highland Controversy
A listenerâs visit to the Knockan Crag Tourist Information Centre in Ross-shire, Scotland, led to the story of how nineteenth century geologists fought over new theories about how mountains are made. The resulting science was pivotal in our understanding of earth sciences. In short, a Darwinian moment in the study of geology.
Making History consulted Dr Maarten Krabbendam at theÌę
Maarten explained that up until the late eighteenth century, the Biblical interpretation of how the earth was made widely accepted by scientists and the educated. But in the 1780âs the Scottish geologist James Hutton (now regarded as the father of modern geology) developed his theory of so-called âdeep timeâ: that the earth was formed and shaped by ongoing processes of erosion and deposition. Addressing the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1788 he said: "we find no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an endâ. In short, earth processes are ongoing.
Up until the early years of the nineteenth century, little geological mapping of the British uplands had been undertaken. This is because the rock strata was very confusing with younger rocks buried under older rocks by the violent geological processes of folding and tilting that we recognise today.
What further confused matters was the process we know as metamorphism, i.e. the altering of existing rocks by heating. In the Highlands of Scotland such a process had destroyed fossils in sedimentary rock which hindered the interpretation of sedimentary rocks, where these are more usually found.
Throughout the middle years of the nineteenth century a sometimes furious debate ensued between geologists about how the rock strata of the Scottish Highlands had been formed. The School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds has an which neatly condenses the arguments:
Other useful links:
Further Reading:
Oldroyd, David R. The Highlands Controversy: Constructing Geological Knowledge through Fieldwork in Nineteenth-Century Britain. 448 p., illustrations. 1990 Series: (SCF) Science and Its Conceptual Foundations series University of Chicago Press.
Alfred Lucas
Ìę A âTodayâ programme debate about the new Tutankhamen exhibition at the 02 Arena in London prompted a Making History listener to ask why her husbandâs ancestor Alfred Lucas never receives any acknowledgement for the help he gave Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon during their remarkable excavation in the 1920âs. Vanessa Collingridge went to meet Dr John Taylor at the British Museum to set the record straight.
Lucas has since been described as Egyptâs Sherlock Holmes. Lucas (1867 â 1945) was a chemist and was one of the first to apply new discoveries in chemical science to archaeology, in particular in preserving new finds. Dr Taylor told the programme that he believes that we have a lot to thank Lucas for because he ensured that finds reached the Cairo Museum in the condition in which they had been discovered.
Useful links
Further Reading
Alfred Lucas: Egypt's Sherlock Holmes
Mark Gilberg Journal of the American Institute for Conservation, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Spring, 1997), pp. 31-48
doi:10.2307/3180082
Pounds and Pinfolds
Nigel Mills contacted the programme from his home in Cumbria asking for more information about a particular feature of upland England, a throwback to the period when much of the land was common land, âpoundsâ or âpinfoldsâ.
Making History consulted Professor Alun Howkins at the University of Sussex who explained that âpoundsâ were used to âimpoundâ cattle that werenât supposed to be grazing on a particular piece of land. The real purpose of this was to ensure that there was enough food for legitimate cattle grazing.
The Maharajahâs Well
A Making History listener picked up a commemorative medal in a Chepstow junkshop which depicted the opening of the âMaharajahâs Wellâ in Stoke Row, Oxfordshire in 1863. Who was this Maharajah she asked and why was he paying for a well in England?
Making History consulted local historian Angela Spencer Harper and Peter Robb, Professor of the History of India at SOAS University of London.
Vanessa has presentedÌęscience and current affairs programmes for ±«Óătv, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Discovery and has presented for ±«Óătv Radio 4 & Five Live and a regular contributor to the Daily Telegraph and the Mail on Sunday, Scotsman and Sunday Herald.Ìę
Contact Making History
Send your comments and questions for future programmes to:
Making History
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Vanessa has presentedÌęscience and current affairs programmes for ±«Óătv, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Discovery and has presented for ±«Óătv Radio 4 & Five Live and a regular contributor to the Daily Telegraph and the Mail on Sunday, Scotsman and Sunday Herald.Ìę