Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Although at first, due to his business commitments, he only had a limited
amount of leisure time to pursue his love of geology, a chance meeting on the
beach at Mundesley, Norfolk with the renowned geologist, Searles V. Wood,
Junior, was the beginning of a friendship and productive partnership during which,
for example, they prepared a contoured-map of the glacial deposits of Norfolk and
Suffolk on a scale of 1 in. to 1 mile, said to be the first 'drift' map of its kind in the
literature.
Sadly, after the publication of further material on the Pleistocene deposits of
eastern England, Wood died in 1884. The loss of his friend and co-worker deeply
affected Harmer and for a time he withdrew from active geological studies and
devoted himself instead to municipal duties and the politics of the day. However,
on discovering, after a gap of about 10 years, that his views had found a sym-
pathetic hearing by a new generation of geologists, he resumed an intensive study
of the Tertiary and Quaternary deposits, both in eastern England and related parts
of mainland Europe. This resulted in a series of papers on the East Anglian Crags,
which as standard references for the subject, inaugurated a new chapter in the
geology of the region. His contributions to glaciology and palaeometeorology
during this later period were no less innovative. His studies as a pioneer palae-
ometeorologist in which he advocated the reconstruction of past circulation pat-
terns comprises an integral part of this volume.
Harmer developed a close relationship with many leading scientists of his time,
both in Britain and mainland Europe and in 1907 he organised a field excursion to
Norfolk in order to examine the geology of the county under his expert guidance.
For this event he invited a number of renowned geologists and related earth
scientists from the international community and their willingness to accept and
attend this excursion reflects the high esteem by which Harmer was regarded at
that time amongst his peers, both at home and abroad as will be described in more
Furthermore in journeys to mainland Europe, Harmer visited colleagues in
France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Italy and Switzerland to discuss and examine
fossiliferous specimens, such as the large collection assembled by the Belgian
malacologist, Philippe Dautzenberg at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural
Sciences in Brussels.
During the final years of his life Harmer produced two outstanding works:
firstly, a contoured map showing the distribution of erratics and drift in England
and Wales (posthumously published, Harmer
1928
); and secondly his magnum
opus, a two-volume monograph, The Pliocene Mollusca of Great Britain (Harmer
1914
-
1925
); this latter work remains a standard reference on the subject in which
he had meticulously examined and copiously illustrated the rich deposits of fos-
silized shellfish in Britain, especially those in northeast Essex and East Anglia.
This massive achievement provides a fitting monument to his outstanding work as
a geologist.
