Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
fire, and he was offered another scholarship worth £60 per annum to
remain at the Royal College. Sixty pounds was not a great deal of
money, but to an impoverished student it gave him a lifeline to extend
his studies and commence research in earnest, and he was able
to supplement this sum by writing book reviews for The Times.
Entering Strutt's laboratory he was given the task of finding a better
datingmethod than the heliumaccumulationmethod, which produced
leaky results. It says something about Holmes' character that he had
the ability to set aside his own research and look for better alternatives:
pride stops many scientists taking similar brave steps. In 1911 he was
offered a job in Mozambique with Memba Minerals Limited which
hoped to exploit the copper and tin deposits in the country. The job was
worth seven times his scholarship, so he went to Africa, but things did
not progress smoothly. The sixty donkeys that had been purchased to
work as carriers of equipment and personnel were riddled with disease
and all but two had to be killed. Later one of the two remaining animals
did not endear itself to one of the geologists: it bit his arm and he nearly
lost it to an infection that set in. The expedition trekked inland
approximately 250 miles and slowly passed over predominantly
Precambrian rocks. This proved useful in a lateral way, as Holmes
was able to collect samples of the mineral zircon, which he later
dated, and the group also found thorium, but precious little else.
He returned to England in late 1911, and soon afterwards mar-
ried a Gateshead girl. They were to have two children, but the elder
died at the tragically young age of 5 in Burma, where his father had
gone to work in 1920 for the inefficient and corrupt Yomah Oil
Company. Prior to his Burmese sojourn Holmes spent time writing a
short book, The Age of the Earth, which was published to critical
acclaim in 1913, and working as a demonstrator at Imperial College
(a rebranded Royal College for Science). Between 1922 and 1924 after
returning fromBurma he eked out a living as the proprietor of a shop in
Newcastle selling exotic goods from India and the Far East. It must
have been a trying and frustrating time for him as he yearned to return
to academia and the age of the Earth problem.
