Abstract
IN the spring of 1839, R. A. C. Godwin-Austen commenced a letter to H, T. de la Beche with the following words: “I am not much in the habit of buttering my friends, but in the present instance you must not complain at being compelled to pay for a shillings-worth of that commodity”. (A shilling was the postage charge for a letter from Newton Abbot to Swansea.) The writer then described his efforts to secure a copy of de la Beche's “Report”, and continued, “I read it before dinner and after: I dipped in it with my tea, and went on devouring it until the ‘dead hour’. I was at it again this morning. …”
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References
NATURE, 143, 254–5 (1939). The present note, also, is based upon manuscripts deposited in the National Museum of Wales by the late Colonel J. I. D. Nicholl of Merthyr Mawr.
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North, F. The Ordnance Geological Survey: Its First Memoir, 1839. Nature 143, 1052–1054 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/1431052a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1431052a0
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