This volume is dedicated to Professor Arthur Holmes, a man to whom Earth scientists, whether geochronologically inclined or not, look as one of the great geologists of the century. Those of us fortunate enough to know Holmes personally find him a quiet man of extraordinary charm, willing to take enormous trouble to help lesser mortals with thier problems. All of us know him as a man of brilliant ideas. He has exercised a profound influence on almost all branches of geology, not only through his own remarkable researchs but also by his beautifully written textbooks (on which many of us wrere weaned) and his stimulation of the research qualities of his students–first in Durham University, where he built up a new department from scratch, and later in Edinburgh University, which was honoured with his occupation of the Chair of Geology for thirteen years and with his presence as Emeritus Professir for six years after he retired in 1956.
Holmes has made a great number of contributions to our knowledge of the geology of many parts of the world, from his home district in the north of England to Africa, India, and elsewhere, but the descriptive aspect of his work has been, far more than with most men, merely a prelude to his remarkable studies of the wider genetic problems of our science. He has gone deep into the major questions of the origin of igneous rocks, partly in association with his accomplished and eminent wife, Dr Doris Reynolds. He was
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