KENNETH L. TAYLOR ISSN 1B28-1533 V* IL INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION ON THE HISTORY OF GEOLOGICAL SCIENCES INHIGEO NEWSLETTER NO. 30 FOR 1 997 Issued in 1 998 INHIGEO is R Commission of the International Union of Geological Sciences Hn Affiliate of the International Union of the History and Philosophy of Sciences Compiled and edited by Dauid R. Oldroyd INHIGEO Secretary-General Printed at The Uniuersity of Ыеш South UJales Rustralia CONTENTS The INHIGEO Board 1 Reports President's Report on the Review of INHIGEO by the IUGS 1 Advisory Board Secretary-General's Message 2 Minutes of the INHIGEO Business Meeting, Liège, 1997 4 Provisional Agenda for the INHIGEO Business Meeting, Neuchâtel, 1998 6 INHIGEO Meetings in 1997: Some Informal Reminiscences 7 Hutton Conference, Edinburgh, 1997, Closing Remarks by Robert Dott 11 Future Meetings, and Activities Related to the History of Geology 13 Awards to INHIGEO Members: Citations and Replies Kennard Bork 18 Martin Guntau 20 Articles Geology in the Land of the Dulcimer by Paul Mohr 22 The Creation of the Mining Colleges under the Habsburg Monarchy 23 by Josef Haubelt Kaspar Maria, Count of Sternberg (1761-1838) by Joseph Haubelt 24 Report from the International Society of Soil Science (ISSS) 25 Standing Committee on the History, Philosophy, and Sociology of Soil Science by Dan Yaalon Book Reviews Ά Russian View of the History and Philosophy of Geology'. 26 Review: of Viktor E. Khain and Anatoly G. Rubin, H istory and Methodology of Geological Sciences by Martin Guntau 'Essays on the History of Soil Science'. Review of: Dan Yaalon 27 and S. Berkowicz (eds), History of Soil Sciences: International Perspectives by Keith Tinkler O f Minerals and History'. Review of: D.D. Hogarth et a l (eds), 28 Martin Frobisher's Northwest Venture 1576-1581: Minerals and Metallurgy by Cecil Schneer 'Studying the Earth: Research, Reasoning, and Riddles'. Review 29 of: Wang Hongzhenef a t (eds), Comparative Planetology, Geological Education, History of Geology by William Sarjeant 'Geology at an Élite University'. Review of: E.A. Vincent 32 Geology and Mineralogy at Oxford 1860-1986: History and Reminiscence by David Oldroyd ' A Rose by Any Other Name*. Review of R.A. Batchelor, Geology 34 at St Andrews by Gordon Craig Country Reports Albania 34 Armenia 35 Australia 36 Belgium 38 Bolivia 38 Brazil 38 China 3 9 Colombia 40 Costa Rica 40 Czech Republic 40 France 41 Germany 42 Hungary 46 India 47 Ireland 47 Italy 48 Japan 49 New Zealand 50 Norway 51 Poland 51 Portugal 5 2 Russia 52 Spain 53 The Netherlands 54 United Kingdom 55 United States 56 Venezuela 58 Yugoslavia 59 Éloges Professor Francisco Gonçalves (Portugal) 59 Professor Dr Helmuth Zapfe (Austria) 5 9 Back Issues of INHIGEO Newsletters on Microfiche 61 New Electronic Sites for Mining History 61 Advertisements of Books Received 62 Athlone Press: Studies in the History and Philosophy of Geology 62 INHIGEO Membership List 65 1 The INHIGEO Board for 1996-2000, as Confirmed by the IUGS Council in Beijing, August, 1996 President Vice Presidents Dr Hugh S. Torrens, Dr Ursula B. Marvin, North America, Department of Earth Sciences, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Keele University, Cambridge (Mass), 02138, Staffordshire, ST5 5BG, U.K. U.S.A. Fax: 44 1782 71 5261 Fax: 1617 495 7001 Phone: 44 1782 58 3183 Phone: 1617 495 7270 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Secretary-General Professor David R. Oldroyd, Professor Franco Urbani, South America, [The University of New South Wales], Facultad de Ingeniera, Escuela de Geologia, 28 Cassandra Avenue, Apartado 47028, St Ives, NSW, 2075, Australia. Caracas 1041-A, Venezuela. Fax: 61 2 9144 4529 Fax: 58 2 693 0927 Phone: 612 9449 5559 Phone: 58 2 605 3120 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Past President Dr David F.X. Branagan, Professor Wang Hong Zhen, Asia, [The University of Sydney], China University of Geosciences, 83 Mimimbah Road, Xueyuan Road 29, Northbridge, NSW, 2063, Australia. 100083 Beijing, P.R. China. Fax: 61 2 9351 0184 Fax: 86 10 62014874 Phone 61 2 9958 7127 Phone: 86 10 202 2244 2527 Email [email protected] Email: [email protected] REPORTS President's Report on the Review of the Work of INHIGEO by the IUGS Advisory Board, Vienna, Morning of 25 January, 1998 Hugh Torrens, President, INHIGEO It was wonderful to meet in such a historic place as Count Rasumovsky's Palace in Vienna (clearly an engagement our musical Secretary should not have been able to avoid!). It was equally wonderful that our meeting had been arranged for a Sunday morning, as otherwise I should have not have been able to attend (with teaching duties the next day back in England starting at 9.00 a.m.). Ezio Vaccari (then based at the Geologisches Bundesanstalt in Vienna) kindly agreed to act as our INHIGEO observer in my absence for the rest of the week's deliberations and his separate report is also available. Past-President Martin Guntau and I represented INHIGEO and the IUGS Advisory Board for Research Development (ABRD) included Attilio Boriani (IUGS Secretary-General), Robin Brett (IUGS President), Glen Caldwell (ABRD Chairman) and Zdenek Johan (IUGS Treasurer), as well as representatives of the other two Commissions to be considered. These were CIMP (Commission on Igneous and Metamorphic Petrogenesis) and CSP (Commission on Systematics in Petrology). INHIGEO was the first to be discussed. Our initial impressions were rather worried, arising from the IUGS Secretary-General's earlier comments (14 February, 1997) that our achievement had been 'limited' in 1996 to three symposia, with the accompanying news of the 100% cut in our budget from IUGS, from $4,000 in 1995 to $2,000 in 1997. Funding was clearly a problem for one of the other commissions under review. Rolf Schmid (CSP), whose Commission gets only a 1/3 of its budget from IUGS, now wants to meet only once every two years, to save funds. By contrast, N.T. Arndt's Commission (CIMP) manages to get annual royalties of $10,000, from a publishing deal with Elzevier, to help fund their activities! Another initial point raised in discussion was that some Commissions were uniquely representing their field on the world stage, like INHIGEO and CIMP, there being no other fora for such activities, while in other fields this was much less the case. I also pointed out some particular problems for the history of geology, in that it studied the history of the most historical science, yet there were still no established positions in the field in universities; and paradoxically most of the support for history of geology within universities came from History, rather than Science, departments. 2 On the other hand, it was clearly, and generally, felt that some new blood was needed in the work of the IUGS and its commissions, and that some priorities were now clearly going to be newly encouraged. An example is the work of the new Global Geosites Working Group which had been given a new starting budget of $4,000, to help initiate and record a global inventory of geological sites and terrains. INHIGEO should have some input into this project, which we will be exploring together in the future. Conclusions After much valuable (and valued) discussion, the Chairman, Glen Caldwell, summarised INHIGEO's current situation as seen by the ABRD: 1. The Board commended the work of INHIGEO, which had resulted in an impressive list of publications over a wide geographical spread. 2. It was suggested that INHIGEO should try more to act as an umbrella organisation for all historical activities within the geo-sciences. The International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG), the International Mineralogical Association (IMA) and the AMU (American Geophysical Union) were three other bodies named, which also support such historical activity, with which we should try to liaise. We also pointed out INHIGEO's joint role with IUHPS (the International Union for the History and Philosophy of Science), at whose 1997 Liège Congress we had recently (for the first time) been successfully active. The possibilities of joint future activity with ICOHTEC (the International Commission on the History of Technology) are also now being actively explored. 3. In order to start the two or three such new Commissions and/or Working Groups planned by IUGS, it may/will be necessary to cut back on the work of existing ones like INHIGEO. The extent of this will depend on future decisions of the Committee for Strategic Planning, which are still awaited. To counter this trend, INHIGEO must try to attract additional funds and run self-sufficient meetings in future. 4. The frequency or otherwise of future INHIGEO meetings should be a matter entirely for the INHIGEO Board. We should now feel under no pressure (as we certainly felt we had been) to organise meetings every year. 5. It was agreed that IUGS should continue to fund INHIGEO at present levels and that we could also continue in future with fewer meetings, if we felt this would help to help raise their quality. It was pointed out that historical researches can take just as much time as money, and that high productivity was not always equivalent to high quality. 6. INHIGEO had generated a fine continuity over thirty years and had already managed to encourage historical studies in different parts of the world, particularly in China and South America. Postscript Later, the role of Episodes was discussed and it was hoped that INHIGEO might be able to help with input of historical papers. Later deliberations also showed that there was some real disquiet (which we must address in future) about the perception of a changed role of INHIGEO, as a result of the 1991 Dresden Proclamation, from a properly international commission to a new role, thought by some to be more appropriate to a learned society.