{"id":549,"date":"2022-10-21T09:19:02","date_gmt":"2022-10-21T09:19:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/lyell\/?p=549"},"modified":"2022-11-10T09:43:27","modified_gmt":"2022-11-10T09:43:27","slug":"an-epoch-in-history-charles-lyell-in-nova-scotia-1842","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/lyell\/2022\/10\/21\/an-epoch-in-history-charles-lyell-in-nova-scotia-1842\/","title":{"rendered":"“An epoch in history” – Charles Lyell in Nova Scotia 1842"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Guest Blog Author Tim Fedak<\/p><\/div>\n

We are delighted to welcome Tim Fedak – a Curator and Palaeontologist based at Nova Scotia Museum<\/a> – to our blog! Tim has been waiting ever so patiently for access to Charles Lyell’s Notebook number 104, documenting his visit to Nova Scotia in 1842 to view the geology and fossil trees at Joggins, and which ushered in a new era of geology….<\/p>\n

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Today, Nova Scotia is well known among geologists around the world for its important geology. \u00a0The Joggins Fossil Cliffs UNESCO World Heritage Site<\/a> has a world class interpretive centre and regular tours of the famous fossil forests. The importance of that site, as well as the Cliffs of Fundy UNESCO Global Geopark<\/a> on the northern shore of the Minas Basin, both find their beginning in 1842.<\/p>\n

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Joggins Fossil Cliffs, a UNESCO World Heritage Site on the shores of the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia.<\/p><\/div>\n

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In July and August of 1842, Charles Lyell was visiting Nova Scotia for a month of geology, to engage the local geologists and to examine the fossil forest that everyone, including Darwin would come to hear about.\u00a0 The interactions he had and the insights he gained from walking along the shores of the Bay of Fundy shaped his observations and convictions about ancient trackways and life in the Coal Age.<\/p>\n

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Cliffs of South Joggins, Figure 18 from Charles Lyell\u2019s Travels in North America, Vol 2. 1845.<\/p><\/div>\n

Sir. William Dawson<\/a> was born and raised in Pictou, Nova Scotia but he had studied at the University of Edinburgh in 1840-41. He was still just a young man passionate about geology and fossils when Lyell visited the province, and they shared insights and views of geology. When Dawson published his iconic Acadian Geology<\/em> in 1855, he noted in the introduction:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe year 1842 forms an epoch in the history of geology in Nova Scotia. In that year Sir Charles Lyell visited the province, and carefully examined some of the more difficult features of its geological structure, which had baffled or misled previous inquirers.<\/em>\u201c\u00a0 p6.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dr. Ebenezer Fitch Harding, a community physician in Windsor, Nova Scotia, was another local geologist that Lyell interacted with, accompanying him to the geology sites and mud flats of the Minas Basin, Bay of Fundy in the summer of 1842.<\/p>\n

See more on this important period in Nova Scotia geology, including the links between Nova Scotia and Edinburgh, and Harding\u2019s contributions to science in Tim\u2019s article https:\/\/www.erudit.org\/en\/journals\/scientia\/2021-v43-n1-scientia05889\/1078926ar\/\u00a0<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lyell\u2019s trip to Nova Scotia is well described in Volume 2 of his ‘Travels to North America’<\/em> published in1845. However, when I first heard that the University of Edinburgh was attempting to purchase Lyell\u2019s 294 Notebooks for archival research, I was immediately thrilled with the thought of what more he might have written during his visit to Nova Scotia. I then celebrated when the project was successful and have been waiting (somewhat) patiently since then.<\/p>\n

In early September this year, I learned that Notebook 104 had been scanned and was now available online<\/a>. I dropped everything and began to carefully make my initial examination of the notes and drawings of the scanned pages.\u00a0 You can see my short presentation of some of the immediately interesting observations made about Notebook 104 at:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/youtu.be\/A1OxD0Hpqog<\/a><\/p>\n