The correspondence between De la Beche and his friends, colleagues and contemporaries (who included Prince Albert and Charles Darwin) gives us a fascinating insight into the day-to-day scientific endeavours of the nineteenth century.

Essays on aspects of the natural world, its heritage, and how best to preserve it. Europe's engagement from the late sixteenth century onwards in scientific Earth science inquiry has generated numerous and varied collections of minerals, rocks, and fossils, together with their associated archives, artworks and publications, forming a rich cultural geoheritage held in major private and especially royal and aristocratic collections, museums, universities, archives and libraries. The mines, quarries, geological structures, landforms, minerals, rocks and fossils - or geodiversity - that underpin these collections populate past and present-day Earth science literature. However, for too long their scientific, historic and cultural significance was not universally recognised and generally they were not accorded adequate resources and protection - or geoconservation. Hence, geotourism was developed in the 1990s to raise public awareness of Europe's geoheritage and geodiversity and to promote itsgeoconservation; the volume's theoretical essays and case studies examine these four core geoelements and provide a timely introduction for anyone interested in natural history museums, countryside management, and landscape-basedtourism. Dr Thomas A. Hose is an Honorary Research Associate in the School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol. He has pioneered the recognition of and research into geotourism, and is the author of the world's first doctoral thesis on the subject. Contributors: Kevin Crawford, Peter Davis, John E. Gordon. Thomas A. Hose, Jonathan G. Larwood, Slobodan B. Markovic, Martin Munt, Emmanuel Reynard, Nemanja Tomic, Djordjije A. Vasiljevic, Margaret Wood, Volker Wrede

Includes monthly abstracts and annual index.

This volume summarizes the results of a survey of British Upper Carboniferous sites, undertaken between 1978 and 1990 as part of the Geological Conservation Review (GCR). The GCR was the first attempt to assess the scientific significance of all Britain's geological sites and has proved a landmark in the development of a coherent geological conservation strategy in this country. To ensure that the assessments were based on a firm logical and scientific foundation, the range of scientific interest was divided into ninety-seven discrete subject 'blocks', reflecting the natural divisions of stratigraphy, palaeogeography and geological process; Westphalian stratigraphy and Namurian stratigraphy were two of these blocks. The first stage in the survey was a review of the literature, to establish a compre hensive database of sites. From this, a provisional list of potentially significant sites was made and this was circulated to all relevant specialists in this country and abroad. At the same time, the sites were visited to assess their physical condition and whether the interest was still extant. In some cases, excavation (so-called 'site-cleaning') was carried out to see if the interest of a site could be resurrected or enhanced. The com ments made by the specialists and the field observations were then used to produce a second site list, which again was circulated for comment.