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"From joining the Geological Society in 1824, Roderick Impey Murchison (1792-1871) became its President only seven years later! He went about his investigation of older rocks in Wales and Eastern Europe with boundless energy and was the first to differentiate and name the Silurian, Devonian and Permian periods of geological time.

He was commissioned by Czar Nicholas 1 to report on the mineral wealth of Russia and undertook in one summer a hazardous journey, by various forms of transport, of over 14,000 miles, from St Petersburg via the Urals to the coalfields of the south. The Czar rewarded him with a Russian knighthood. He later received a baronetcy from Queen Victoria. To these honours were added a further seventeen major awards from governments and scientific societies across Europe."

After extensive research, John L. Morton has presented Murchison's remarkable lifestory in detail and included forty illustrations, sixteen in colour.

STRATA (New Edition): The remarkable Life Story of William Smith, "The Father of English Geology".

ISBN No. 0-9546829-1-2. 170 pages, 38 illustrations, 8 in colour. UK Ł11.99 USA $20.99. The book will be available in early September 2004 from:-

William Smith was the first man to realise that rock strata extended right across the country - that fossils found in Dorset were the same as those in Yorkshire, because the rocks were of the same age. In 1797, he drew up a list of twenty-eight rock strata beneath the town of Bath, from the chalk to the limestone underneath the coal. In 1801, he drew the first geological map of any country, and fourteen years later he published a detailed map, measuring 8 feet 6 inches by 6 feet, coloured with twenty different tints, of the rock structures from the Scottish border to the English Channel. He so believed in the significance of his work to the country's economy, that he bankrupted himself for the sake of it, and spent ten weeks in a debtors' prison.

John L. Morton has traced Smith's life as a surveyor, canal-builder, land-drainage expert and sea-defense constructor, to his provision of adequate fresh water supplies for the summer resort of Scarborough. Only towards the end of his life was his genius fully recognised, when he was dubbed 'The Father of English Geology'.

Members are thoroughly familiar with the highly-amusing poems on geological subjects that have appeared from time to time in Stonechat over Gordon’s name. He has been persuaded to put a collection of forty-six of them together, printed in a booklet of fifty-two pages. Here is an anthology divided into five sections: Doing geology, Field trips, Rocks, Fossils and Plate Tectonics. The judge has handed down sentences which anyone would be happy to serve! This little book is hard to put down and at Ł3.00 plus 50p P&P is a real bargain for its entertainment value. If you have not already done so, get a copy from Gordon Judge:-

Following the success of the highly-amusing poems on geological subjects that have appeared from time to time in Stonechat over Gordon’s name, a collection of which formed his first publication, "GeoVerse", he has now put together a second collection of forty-nine of them, printed in a booklet of fifty-six pages. Here is an anthology divided into eight sections: Doing (more) Geology, Fossils, Sussex Stones, Martian Geology, Undersea geology, Earthly geology, Geology, and A Poetic Conglomerate. The judge has again handed down sentences which anyone would be happy to serve! This second little book is equally hard to put down and at Ł3.00 plus 50p P&P is a real bargain for its entertainment value. If you have not already done so, get a copy from Gordon Judge at:-