h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A lovely article. Is it true that the tongue twister 'she sells sea shells upon the sea shore' comes from this?

Thanks.

I've just added Lyme Regis to my list of "Places I must visit sometime"

I've picked the od fossil from the shores of Fife in the same way. Isn't it fascinating that ordinary folk can add to the store of the world's knowlege in very simple ways.

More of a tongue-twister really. Teryy Sullivan wrote 'She sells sea shells' in 1908 - and although it has been connected with Mary Anning, the writer didn't make an overt reference. But I like to think that was who he was singing about.
Frogbit.

Definately a great article - although wouldn't it be fairer to say that William Buckland ended up in a lunatic asylum because he was never really in a completely sane frame of mind. Definately half genius, half mad.

<BB<

True, he was always eccentric, living with wild animals and performing extravagant theatrics to prove a point, but I think he was sane enough for most of his life - able to function at any rate. Towards the end though, he was in torment - lost his faculties to behave in a 'sociable' manner. This was kind of the dividing line.

A lovely article, I really enjoyed reading it. I spent a holiday in Lyme Regis a couple of years ago and believe me, it is well worth a visit, but please plan on staying at least a week. Once you get on the beach, hunting amoung all those rocks, you will be so fascinated you won't want to leave it!

My friends and I went down there every day, searching for that one find that just might be something out of the ordinary. It's addictive, you just have to go on and on and on.....................
but I won't!! Just go, you won't be sorry!!

Pinkie

Thanks Pinkie... You're right about the addictiveness of fossil hunting. A week's never enough. A *lifetime's* never enough...
Frogbit.

I do agree frogbit, I wish we could have stayed longer. There is a shop in the main street with so much stuff in it to buy, when we weren't on the beach, we were in there!! They have things from 10p to thousands of pounds. It is just so fascinating........

Pinkie

Was that in Lyme or Charmouth?
The shop in Charmouth has the 40ft ichthyosaur 'Mary' in the work-room.
Speak soon,
Frogbit.

Hi Frogbit! That was Lyme Regis, I have promised myself another holiday there, I'd love to go fossil hunting again!! I think we will take the motor caravan down there for a few days, this year sometime!!

See you soon....

Pinkie

Good for you Pinkie - more power to your elbow.
Just got news of some pink and green ammonites in West Somerset - off their soon.

Hi Grogbit. Are you from somewhere down south, talking about West Somerset I just presume you may not be far away?

See you soon

Pinkie.

Wells - you?

Hi Frogbit! Hampshire/Wiltshire border, near Andover.

I cross the Solent so often I'm tempted to give up and just live in it

<BB<

I doubt it would be much wetter than Wells.

Probably not

<BB<

The Solent, that is.
Hey BB. Seeing as I'm ploughing though your dinosaur stuff, how about you plough through a new one of mine? http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A678954
(I wish there was a cheeky smiley).

Scratch that! It could do with a bit more work.

Buckland and Mary are both very interesting portions of a larger work by Simon Winchester, have you read it? Called, "The Map That Changed the World". It's an absolutely wonderful history of William Smith (a protege of Buckland), a canal engineer who noticed and began to organize fossil strata he was seeing all over Britain, into the world's first geological map.

Winchester does a brilliant job of putting Smith into context with the Gentlemen Scholars of the time who collected fossils such as Mary and her peers were digging up, and started the Geological Society, and held snooty, scholarly dinners to discuss the latest fossil finds and various theories about how the fossils got to where they were found. Smith himself was a working man, self-educated and snubbed by this community, and so the map was published without crediting him with its authorship or payment, and he died in penury.

Even if geology is not your first love (it's of only mild interest to me), you would really like the book.

T.