Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
although in the early years there was usually only one or two a
year of these privileged geology students.
The majority of these honours graduates went on to serve in
geological surveys around the world, and the first of these,
A. E. Phaup, was no exception. Phaup graduated in 1928, where-
upon he saw an advertisement for a job as geologist on the
Geological Survey of Southern Rhodesia. Soon after applying he
was interviewed in London and immediately o¬ered the job,
never thinking to ask why the post had become vacant. On
arrival in Salisbury he was handed a motor car (he had never
learnt to drive), told to take on 'a dozen black men' and get
straight out into the field. Finally curious as to what all the rush
was about, on arrival at his destination he enquired what had
happened to his predecessor. It transpired he had been eaten by
a lion!
Holmes' second student was Kingsley Dunham, who eventu-
ally became head of the Geological Survey in Britain. Originally
Dunham had gone to Durham to study chemistry and had taken
geology as an auxiliary subject. At the age of eighty-eight Sir
Kingsley recalled with great clarity the excitement of hearing
Holmes lecture, and how it influenced the decision of his life:
To say that I was fascinated by his first year lectures is a great under-
statement: I thought the whole subject so exciting and it was the really
delightful lectures by Holmes to his quite sizeable first year class that first
introduced me to the subject. After the results of the auxiliary exams were
posted I thought I would just look into Geology and say goodbye to
Hopkins
[by then Holmes was Professor, and Hopkins was a lec-
turer]
. So I went in and he was sitting there at his desk. He looked at
me and said 'Dunham, you did alright in that exam. Why don't you
change over to geology and get into a real subject?' I was immediately
very struck with this because I had enjoyed Holmes' lectures very much
more than those by Dr. Walters who had given the physics lectures, or
the reader in chemistry who had given most of the chemical ones. So I
thought well, at least I know that by far the best of the three lecturers is
Holmes, I may as well take a shot at this. I was also very conscious of
