Petrology at the Lapworth Museum
The Museum holds a number of petrological samples across several historic collections.
General Petrology Collection
The Museum holds a petrology collection of around 50,000 rock specimens from the UK and classic sites around the world. Most of this material was collected during the second half of the nineteenth century, combined with additions during the twentieth century. The UK collection is rich in material from NW Scotland, Wales, Shropshire, the Midlands, Welsh Borderlands, and the Lake District. Worldwide material includes suites of rocks from famous sites such as the Ile de Groix in Brittany, with its classic blueschist facies metamorphic mineral assemblages, and the Masirah Ophiolite sequence in Oman. The Museum also holds a small collection of meteorites, and tektites - glassy material formed by meteorite impacts.
Polished iron meteorite.
Solidified lava.
Laxfordian gneiss.
Samuel Allport Collection
Born in Birmingham, Samuel Allport (1816–1897) was the first librarian of Mason College (the forerunner of the University of Birmingham) and the first curator of the geology museum. Allport was an early pioneer of petrological microscopy, and the Museum holds around 1,500 of his early handmade microscope slides, along with a greater number of rock hand specimens. The collection is enhanced by a significant quantity of Allport’s hand-drawn illustrations, photographs, and catalogues.
The Museum also has a similar collection of approximately 1,000 early microscope slides of rocks made by T. H. Waller, another Birmingham-based pioneer of petrological microscopy. The combined collections of Allport and Waller form an important record of the development of a technique that remains key to the study and understanding of rocks.
Allport's early thin sections.
Allport's rock specimens.
Allport's rock specimens and related thin sections.
Priestley Collection
Sir Raymond Priestley (1886–1974) accompanied Sir Ernest Shackleton (1874–1922) on the Nimrod Antarctic Expedition between 1907 and 1909; and also served as geologist on the final expedition of Captain Robert Falcon Scott (1868–1912), though becoming separated from the ill-fated Polar party before their demise. Priestley went on to serve in the First World War and later took up post as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Birmingham.
Priestley gave a small number of Antarctic specimens to the Museum, including items collected during Scott's expedition. He also presented the earliest collected specimen the collections hold. This was a piece of 'black earth' collected in 1577 during the voyages of Sir Martin Frobisher (1535–1594), one of the earliest maritime explorers. Frobisher's first voyage reached Baffin Island in Canada, and on his return there were tales of 'black earth rich in gold'. He returned to the area to bring back this ore, which was deposited in Dartford, Kent. However, it proved to be a worthless, gold-free amphibolite, and many of Frobisher's backers became bankrupt.
A specimen of Kenyte collected during Priestley's Antarctic expeditions.
Frobisher's 'black earth' collected in 1577.
A specimen collected during Priestley's Antarctic expeditions.
Norwegian Expeditions
The Vesey Club was founded as a literary and scientific society in Birmingham around 1888 by the industrialist, MP, Fellow of the Geological Society, and photographer Sir Benjamin Stone (1838–1914), a good friend of Charles Lapworth (1842–1920). Lapworth was also a member of the Vesey Club, and he and Stone both took part in the Vesey Club’s 1890 visit to Norway, where Lapworth was responsible for the geological excursions. Lapworth collected and brought back to Mason College in Birmingham a representative suite of rocks from areas they visited during the trip, including a number of large, impressive metamorphic rocks, which feature in the Museum’s Rock Wall.
Elijah Walton F.G.S. (1832–1880) was born in Birmingham and became a well-known landscape artist focussing on mountainous terrains in the Alps and Scandinavia. He was very gifted in his ability to capture mountain scenery and atmospheric effects. The Museum holds a set of beautiful chromo-lithograph plates which illustrate Walton’s 1848 book 'The Coast of Norway'. They are the result of a painting and sketching expedition from Stavanger to Hammerfest and back to Christiania. In addition to the plates, the book contains descriptive text regarding the geography and geology of the region by the geologist and theologian, Professor T.G. Bonney, M.A., F.S.A., F.G.S. (1833–1923).
Charles Lapworth's Norwegian expedition.
One of Elijah Walton's chromo-lithograph plates from The Coast of Norway.
Charles Lapworth's Norwegian expedition.
Volcanic Eruptions
The Museum holds important material relating to the historic eruption of several volcanoes, including Krakatoa in 1883 and Mount Pelée in 1902.
Mount Pelée
On 8th May 1902, Mount Pelée on the island of Martinique in the Caribbean erupted, killing over 30,000 people and destroying the city of St. Pierre. There had been several years of minor activity before the eruption of 1902, which saw a pyroclastic flow descend the mountain and wipe out the city almost instantaneously. In terms of loss of life, this eruption was the deadliest of the 20th century.
Lava Medallions
Lava medallions are examples of 19th century souvenirs from volcanic regions, in this case Italy. They were made by collecting red hot lava using a long scoop, and pressing it into a mould before stamping. They were then cooled in water, before being sold to tourists. The final medallions often portrayed the heads of Roman emperors, kings or other famous individuals. Other souvenirs included lava in which coins had been deliberately embedded.
Krakatoa
In 1885, a relative of a crew member on board the ship Charles Bell presented the Museum with specimens of volcanic material which had covered the ship as it sailed close to the erupting Krakatoa two years prior. In addition, there is a copy of the ship Captain’s Report, which provides an eyewitness account in great detail of the huge eruption and subsequent tidal waves, which caused terrible destruction to nearby islands and accounted for the loss of over 36,000 lives.
The blinding fall of sand and stones, the intense blackness above and around us, broken only by the incessant glare of varied kinds of lightning, and the continued explosive roars of Krakatoa, made our situation a truly awful one.
Volcanic lava bomb.
Fragments of lava and warped glass with 20th century newspapers from the Pelée eruption.
Two lava medals.