Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
day. They stayed up late into the night discussing geology and
the following day were almost inseparable as they walked
around Ardnamurchan. That evening, not wishing to get into
the heated debate of the previous night, Holmes and his student
Dunham amused everyone by playing four-hand duets on the
hotel's piano. The professor and his most junior demonstrator
thumping out tunes on a piano that was out of tune and had a
couple of keys missing, put everyone in the party mood. Musical
Chairs caused much hilarity as grown men fought with one
another to get seated. Doris won Musical Statues to cries of
'favouritism' at Arthur who was both pianist and judge, then
someone suggested Cat's Cradle. Here two people are placed
back to back in the centre of a large circle of people and a piece
of string is passed through their hands. The ends of the string
are held by the circle which revolves around them eventually
tying them up in a cat's cradle from which the two then endeav-
our to extricate themselves. The first people to be called upon
were Doris and Arthur. Their interest in each other had not gone
unnoticed by the group, and somebody was feeling mischievous.
As they stood back to back with everybody looking on Arthur
felt a good deal of embarrassment, but also highly flattered at
having been singled out from all the other men on the trip by
this brilliant woman. Doris on the other hand was laughing, not
the least self conscious, and enjoying every minute of being tied
up with Arthur. Even then, Kingsley Dunham recognised it as a
symbolic moment.
By the end of the ten-day trip Arthur and Doris were in love.
Fired by an unbridled passion, their mutual love of geology, it
was a true meeting of minds, their individual interests in the
science dovetailing perfectly. They talked geology incessantly,
and on returning to their respective departments they continued
their geological discussions by letter. They must have occa-
sionally seen each other when Holmes visited London for
Geological Society Meetings, for he records his grateful thanks
to
'my friend Miss Doris L. Reynolds . . . for her generous co-
