19th January 2012
Hundreds of beautiful sections of fossil wood, many of them collected by Darwin on his voyage on his Beagle, have been found in a dusty cabinet in the corner of a warehouse.The collection is a microcosm of the history of science in the 19th century, and tells stories of friendship, romance - and rivalry.
Dr Howard Falcon-Lang was exploring the huge warehouse of the British Geological Survey, when he turned down a narrow corridor and came across a 19th century cabinet amid the packing crates, the key still in the lock. He opened the cabinet, pulled out a specimen and held it up towards the fluorescent lights. To his astonishment, the specimen was neatly labelled 'C. Darwin, Esq'.
The material was collected together by the great 19th century botanist, and Darwin's best friend, Joseph Hooker, who travelled the globe in search of botanical rarities. Among the slides is material from his voyage around round the world, including trips to Australia in search of fossil plants. The collection also includes some of the first thin sections ever made by William Nicol, the pioneer of petrography, in the late 1820s.
During the course of Darwin's famous voyage on the Beagle (1831 - 1836), he visited Chiloe Island off the coast of Chile. Here, Darwin encountered ‘many fragments of black lignite and silicified and pyritous wood, often embedded close together’. Some of these fragments found their way into Hooker's collections, as part of their exchanges of discoveries.
But who would think of fossil sections as being a romantic gift? Many of the specimens are labelled 'Miss Henslowe' - perhaps Miss Frances Henslow, who became engaged to Joseph Hooker in 1847, a few months after he assembled this collection. Frances Henslow was the eldest daughter of John Henslow, Darwin's mentor, and the man who found him his place on board the Beagle. John Henslow has a special connection with Science and Plants for Schools - he created Cambridge Botanic Garden, where we are based, as an exploration of his ideas about variation in nature and 'monster' plants.
Other fossil sections tell a story of rivalry between two 19th century scientists. Willian Nicol, who invented the polarizing microscope, and pioneered the science of petrography, the detailed study of rocks. His friend and supporter was the wealthy Henry Witham, who sourced fossil plants for Nicol from his many contacts. But the collaboration turned sour when Witham published a book based on both their work - without putting Nicol's name on the cover. Nicol was furious, and the result was a falling out between the friends that lasted until their deaths.
The first parts of this incredible fossil collection is now available to see online - count the rings of the fossil trees to see how old they were when they died.
See the fossil collection online, and read a collection of articles about its background.
You can read Darwin, Hooker and Henslow's letters online at the Darwin Correspondence Project.