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Introduction |
Department of Geology, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland (e-mail: wysjcknp@tcd.ie)
| The first 300 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Many geologists, by the very nature of their profession tend to lead peripatetic lives: their livelihood depends on the exploitation of the products of the Earth's crust, or if they are academic geologists, teaching others about the Earth.
The origins of the profession of geologist can be traced back to central Europe in the late sixteenth century in places where mining had been a serious undertaking. By the 1800s, the science that had become known as ‘geology’ some 100 years earlier, began to be formulated as knowledge of the landscape and its constituents, and gradually became more widely known and understood. At this time in Europe, and later in North America, remote areas were being opened up by the cutting of canals and later by the laying of railways to facilitate economic trade. In England, William Smith (1769–1839) became familiar with a great deal of English geology as he traversed the countryside surveying canals and assessing estates for the presence of economically exploitable materials, experience and information that he encapsulated in his geological map of 1815 and in his writings on stratigraphy.
However, the potential rewards to be gained by economic exploitation of the Earth's resources are only one reason for geological travel and prospecting: other reasons for undertaking scientific travel are either unfocused curiosity or eccentricity,1 or in contrast to this, a desire on the part of an organized individual to understand the geological framework and nature of the country to be visited. In some cases, geologists were sent abroad to study so that they might help to improve the extractive industries on their return. Similar cases of travel for education are prevalent today with many students being sent from the developing world to further their geological education.2 In other cases, travel, that was considered by some to be
