Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
Earth's Crust before Xmas and get it in the February number
of Science Progress with luck. I intend writing all over the
world to surveys and societies for material of known geol. age
to analyse for U and Pb
[uranium and lead].
I am in hopes of
gradually building up a geol. time scale and hope it might
do for a DSc!!! There's conceit if you like! Still, I may as well
confess to you that a DSc
[Doctorate of science]
is my pres-
ent aim and object, and with other published work I think it
ought not now to be far away.
He closed the letter to Bob: '
Well
goodbye old man for tonight. I'm greatly looking forward to
seeing you and my folks again and shall have a most gor-
geous time.
This is the last letter he wrote from Mozambique since others
would be unlikely to arrive in England before he did. From here
on we rely on the diary to tell us the rest of the story.
Barton and Holmes proceeded to Starey's camp to impart the
news of the expedition's return to England, and here everyone
stayed for their final two weeks. During that time Holmes' bouts
of fever became more frequent and more severe, on one occa-
sion his temperature rising to 105 ∞F:
'I shall be awfully glad
to get on the boat again and safely out of this underhand sort
of country'.
When not sick with fever Holmes spent the time
working on maps and reports for Memba Minerals, and help-
ing Mr Barton settle up the company accounts, which had got
very behind.
He
[Mr Barton]
really should have a secretary as the
amount of clerical work in an expedition of this kind is enor-
mous. There are four parties and two main establishments -
Mosuril and Sawa - and all have rather complicated finance
accounts for not only is money the currency, but also cloth of
three kinds, wire, beads etc. All reports, bills, accounts, let-
ters and documents of every kind must be copied and sent to
the London office, so you will see that a good deal of work is
entailed.
Finally, after packing everything up, they arrived back at
