A Curious Boy

by Richard Fortey

  Shortly before I embarked on my seminal trip to Svalbard a short scientific paper by J. T. Wilson was published in Nature. It changed the way I interpreted my results. Simply entitled ‘Did the Atlantic close and then reopen?’ Wilson’s little paper stated what now seems to be obvious. Plate tectonics did not begin with Pangaea and its break-up. There was a more distant period of earth’s history when Pangaea itself was assembled from even older continents that were stitched together by the same tectonic forces that move the plates today. The face of the planet was in continuous motion, at a pace both slow and implacable. The dance of the continents was staged over hundreds of millions of years; the geography at the period of deposition of my Ordovician rocks must have been utterly different from that when mighty Pangaea was assembled nearly 200 million years later. The Ordovician was a time when the continents were spread as widely across the globe as they are today – although then they were different continents (‘palaeocontinents’ to give them their scientific label). Old conundrums were plausibly explained: the western Highlands of Scotland had always looked geologically like a piece of Canada and New York State. This chunk of Scotland was stranded on the European side of the Atlantic Ocean when it opened in the era after Pangaea. Back in the Ordovician it was a part of the ancient palaeocontinent of Laurentia and located in the tropics. A trilobite could have swum from Albany, NY to the Isle of Skye through a warm and shallow sea. The research programme switched to reconstructing the continents as they were before Pangaea was assembled. New jigsaw puzzles for solving older worlds.

  In the office next door to mine in the Sedgwick Museum an exceptionally talented, energetic young lecturer was exploiting the new understanding of plate tectonics to account for all manner of features of ancient mountain chains. The Appalachians continued from North America into Scotland and Norway and were once a single entity. When Pangaea was intact this mountain chain snaked through the supercontinent rather in the way the Urals cross Russia today. This mighty ancient mountain chain had been created when ancient continents collided – analogous to the way in which the Himalayan chain is the consequence of the push of the Indian subcontinent against the vast body of Asia. John Dewey and his American friend Jack Bird were milking plate tectonics with gusto to explain all manner of features along what is perhaps best called the Appalachian–Caledonian mountain chain. The two young scientists cackled and joked together in uproarious fashion, while I buzzed on my preparation tool to extract my trilobites. Poor John Bursnall must have been driven to distraction by his noisy neighbours. Dewey was slightly podgy then, but unusually athletic. When particularly excited (which was often) he might suddenly flip into a very professional handstand, which he could hold for a long time. He spoke as fast as he thought, which was very fast indeed. He had an apparently endless capacity to absorb information, build it into the big geological picture and then prepare explanatory drawings of elegance and lucidity to publish the results. The process of drawing helped to clarify his ideas in a curious kind of feedback loop. In my own work, too, drawings were becoming an important part of my thesis; those afternoons in the Art Room with Mr Bland were proving their worth. Dewey loved fieldwork,[2] which he regarded as the basis of good geology; he liked to quote the pioneer structural geologist E. B. Bailey: ‘The best geologist is the one who has seen the most rocks …’ So here we have three scientific sketches: McKenzie, mathematical and theoretical, but aware of how his ideas might be tested; Dewey, arch synthesiser of observations made in the field by himself and others; and myself, at last seeing how my own fossil work might mesh with the change in the zeitgeist.

  Harry Whittington appeared from time to time during this creative phase. He tolerated my mistakes in deference to my enthusiasm, occasionally nudging me towards an obscure trilobite reference I had missed. Some ‘advisers’ regard their research students as little more than satellites in their own, substantial planetary system, but Harry was content that his students were making their own orbits. He did occasionally indicate his doubts about some idea or other by rubbing one side of his chin and throwing a dubious glance – it was enough to encourage second thoughts. Like all his former charges, I think of him with affection and gratitude. Some of his colleagues did not share this opinion. They mistook his gentleness for feebleness. They even tried to oppose his appointment. One of this number was Norman Hughes, a specialist in fossil spores and pollen, who clearly loathed the Woodwardian Professor. Hughes had a generously proportioned bald pate and a fleshy mouth and thought of himself as humorous, and indeed his whole body shook rather frequently with laughter, but never at his own expense. When I talked with him over morning coffee among the old building-stone collection on the ground floor of the Sedgwick Museum, I foolishly began a sentence with ‘Professor Whittington thinks …’ Norman Hughes cut me off sharply. ‘Jellies don’t think!’ he snapped, immediately segueing into one of his laughs; a Cambridge put-down at its most vicious. Harry Whittington went on to win the Japan Prize many years later, probably the nearest thing to a Nobel Prize in palaeontology. Few people remember his detractor, other than by the soubriquet ‘Norman the spore-man’.

  Thesis research just got more interesting. When I tested the reaction of the dark Svalbard limestone in acetic acid the calcium carbonate dissolved, and the rock slowly disappeared leaving behind only things that were insoluble in the weak acid. From one of my samples, graptolites floated out. My heart leapt. The usual preservation of graptolites is flattened on the surfaces of shales. Colonies of these extinct, floating animals came to rest on the sea floor, where they were covered by sediment and squashed. Their original organic walls rapidly changed to a carbon film: they became more like shadow puppets of the original animals. Living graptolites had colony walls made of a collagen-like material that was delicate, but also insoluble in weak acid. This original material had survived in my samples. When the limestone that had embraced them was dissolved away they floated free, almost as they were when they were alive.[3] In this preservation they showed extraordinary details all but invisible on the usual flattened specimens. The previous Woodwardian Professor, O. M. B. Bulman, had made his name working on similar material that he had extracted from younger Ordovician limestones in Scotland. So now I had something of great interest to two world authorities working in the Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge – graptolites as well as trilobites.

  I soon discovered a graptolite that had never been seen before. Many Ordovician graptolites had branched colonies, with the little tubes occupied by the living animals arranged in lines along each branch – hence the resemblance to hacksaw blades when they were fossilised sideways-on in the usual way. In life, the colonies filtered out tiny plankton for food as they drifted far above the Ordovician sea floor. Some graptolites developed a different arrangement, such that the lines of little tubes were arranged in series back to back, looking somewhat like the grain-bearing spikes of wheat or barley. Two different configurations of these so-called scandent graptolites were familiar, with either two or four series of tubes in contact (termed biserial or quadriserial, respectively). What had never been seen among dozens of species was any graptolite with three series back to back (I would have to term it ‘triserial’) – but this is exactly what I thought I had discovered. At first, I had only fragmentary material. Somewhat nervously, I approached Emeritus Professor Bulman’s office, which was as any good palaeontologist’s should be, crowded with specimens and books. It was surprising the whole place had not gone up in flames because Bulman was a tremendous smoker, and splashed alcohol freely over rock slabs covered in graptolites to see them more clearly. The fumes were everywhere. He gruffly acknowledged my presence as I mumbled something about triserial graptolites. I handed him my finds and he coughed a little while he examined the fragments under a low-powered binocular microscope. ‘Not convinced,’ he said in a way that implied that further conversation was not required, ‘triserial graptolites don’t exist.’ I retreated wounded, but not defeated. Over the next three weeks I dissolve
d many more blocks of the right kind of limestone in acetic acid. At last, I was rewarded with the perfect specimen, which floated out from its rock prison intact – a complete colony several centimetres in length and indubitably triserial. I gingerly removed it from the neutralised acid bath into a phial of glycerin for safe keeping. I might make a more modest assessment of my discovery today, but when I found my graptolite I could not have been more delighted if I had found the common ancestor of humans and great apes. If it had been a dinosaur as novel, it would have made newspaper headlines. This time I was sure of my ground, and Professor Bulman was astonished – he said something like ‘Well, I never!’ and his manner changed immediately. ‘This must be written up.’ It was an order. That is why the subject of my first solo scientific paper is a graptolite, rather than a trilobite. It may not have made the newspapers, but it made my life worthwhile.

  Bulman set me up in a laboratory in the basement of the Sedgwick Museum. Drawing isolated graptolites required the utmost stability, and the old attic of the museum had ancient floorboards that moved enough to disturb the graptolites floating in their Petri dishes. A sketch made with a camera lucida[4] required the subject to stay absolutely still, and the concrete basement was fit for the purpose. John Bursnall must have been delighted to get rid of me for a while – peace for him at last. For me, it was like being back in the Art Room at Ealing Grammar School for Boys. I recovered some of my skills: my ‘object’ in this chapter is one of those drawings. I was completely engrossed in the task for some weeks, all of that time being a digression from my PhD. I then had to write the scientific paper on the first triserial graptolite.

  My drawings of the special graptolite from the Ordovician rocks of Spitsbergen from my first solo scientific paper.

  As a natural mimic I soon learned the ‘voice’ of the scientific journal. The personal must be excised completely – nothing about how thrilling it was to make a new discovery. ‘I’ becomes ‘the author’. The introductory part of the paper briefly explains the history of the topic and outlines the importance of what is to follow, with references to the work of predecessors – let us say Snooks (1934). The full bibliography is at the back of the paper, so that is where you look to find out where Snooks published his findings. You are absolutely not permitted to say: ‘This paper proves that Snooks (1934) got it entirely wrong (the fool)’ but you are allowed to say: ‘Snooks (1934) interpreted the structure of the graptolite as biserial whereas the current work shows that it is significantly different …’ This formal reticence does avoid confrontation in an insulting way – but of course that does not prevent a criticised scientist from being affronted. ‘Materials and methods’ usually follow in a palaeontology paper, and after that the meat of the work with new information and observations, illustrated with care. If a species is being named or described there is a formal way of laying that out, too. The material on which a species is based should be listed and curated in a recognised, permanent collection; if a new species is proposed it must be distinguished from all existing ones, and its name must not be insulting. Snooksia incompetens would not be acceptable. The paper usually finishes with some sort of discussion explaining the significance of the work, and subtly giving old Snooks another kicking. Conclusions end the text, except for acknowledgements, which tactfully express gratitude to the professor for his sage advice. At the top of the whole thing an abstract summarises the main points for those who want to know the gist without having to read the details. These days, a paper is usually published online before it appears on paper (a paperless paper is no longer an oxymoron). Date of publication is important in ‘hot’ science like particle physics because it establishes priority. In a competitive world, the rewards go to the swift. There was nobody out there with a triserial graptolite – no one even suspected it existed – so I did not have to worry about being pipped to the post.

  Professor Bulman read my draft and approved it. I received a brief but friendly smile when at last he took the cigarette out of his mouth and placed it smouldering atop a pile of readily inflammable offprints. Bulman set the bar high and I had cleared it: if I had ever entertained regrets about not becoming a historian of other people’s science they disappeared at that moment. I owned a discovery. Only one hurdle remained, to submit the paper for publication in the journal Palaeontology. Thus began a routine that would be familiar to any scientist: a threshold that had to be crossed to signal a new seriousness. The paper was submitted to the editor. He or she sent it on to an independent scientific referee (generally, two referees) who chose to remain anonymous. Eventually, their comments and an evaluation were returned to the editor. Some papers were rejected at that stage, but otherwise the comments were sent back to the author for consideration (usually, they improve the manuscript). If the editor sees no problems the revised paper joins the queue for a number of the journal. When I started to publish this was often a leisurely phase, so my contribution to science took over a year to appear in print. Electronic publication has speeded up the whole business in the twenty-first century, but the same procedures apply, usually described as ‘peer review’. This remains the best guarantee of quality science.[5] Harry Whittington was uncharacteristically insistent on the necessity for publication. ‘If it isn’t published, it does not exist’ became something of a mantra for him. He observed this rule himself throughout his long life. The phrase ‘publish or perish’ was already current when I was a graduate student, and it has since come to dominate academic life. No longer can an unworldly don wave his briar pipe vaguely in the direction of a pile of handwritten notes and proclaim that the great work was fermenting nicely. Results are not allowed to mature in the bottle. Nonetheless, I was unusual at the start of the 1970s in having a published paper or two on my curriculum vitae before I had taken my doctorate.

  This was the most single-minded time in my life. We lived within walking distance of the Sedgwick Museum. Every day I crossed the bridge over the River Cam and traversed Midsummer Common towards Downing Street, a pleasant amble through an attractive part of the old university town. The regular routine was a pleasure, the more so because memories of packing potatoes were still fresh. Bridget worked in a travel agency, and together we had just enough to get by. Quite soon, a baby was on its way. I do not believe I did anything concerning fungi or wildflowers during my thesis years. I certainly did not write anything that was not concerned with palaeontology. I was turning into a specialist. There were new friends, but not from King’s College. Fellow research students and ‘postdocs’ built a different social circle. Young married couples hardly ever lived in college; indeed, another kind of Cambridge lay outside those ancient walls. All the research students I knew were from relatively ordinary backgrounds. Upon graduation the Etonians and their congeners had all left for the City or politics. The gossip among my peers was now of geology and the ruses needed to get a permanent job, something that was already starting to be a challenge. I could talk endless trilobite details with two new postdoctoral fellows who had come to work with Harry Whittington. My undergraduate friend Michael Welland returned from Harvard University (where he had earned a Masters degree) with Carol, his young American wife; he started researching a thesis on the geology of Greece. Carol had come from a superior East Coast ladies’ college, Mount Holyoke, and found the introspective snobbery of Cambridge something of a shock; her friendship with Bridget saved her from bolting back to the USA. I was becoming just a little more grown up; but the breadth of vision belonging to the curious boy I had once been was sacrificed for an orderly fascination. I was too busy to notice my loss. I enjoyed the extended family that came with Bridget, that made such a contrast from the claustrophobia of suburban Ealing. It was regrettable that my young wife did not get along with her mother-in-law.

  By now, my mother had developed a troubled restlessness that was part of an uneasy adaptation to her widowhood. She moved from Ham to the neighbouring village of Shalbourne into a modern house that was easier to run than ancient Forge
Cottage with its deep thatch. She had acquired a kind-of companion, John Norton, who lived under the same roof for a number of years. I believe they met in the village pub where I had been hailed as a class warrior. He was a retired civil servant with a big drink problem. He did useful jobs around the house and garden, and willingly took on such chores in return for free accommodation. He probably recognised that being with Margaret saved him from perdition. He was broadly cultured and so was able to offer proper companionship on expeditions across Wiltshire and beyond. His status was curiously undefined, but my mother was certainly in charge. John followed her in her subsequent house moves, continuing to live in a grace-and-favour capacity until he died. A particular difficulty was that my mother did not approve of Bridget and Bridget did not approve of my mother. I was glad of John Norton’s role in moderating some fraction of this enmity. My principal loyalties had been captured by my new, extended family in Cambridge. I avoided any confrontations at my former home, and rather than face up to conflicting emotions buried myself deeper and deeper into the Ordovician period. I now recognise that this was not so different from using art and music to deflect attention from my deficiencies as head boy of Ealing Grammar School: I had a talent for blotting out what I didn’t want to see. I remembered how my father continued to cast flies for wild brown trout, all the while ignoring the tax inspector waving papers right in front of him. Such a strange variety of amnesia may have served me well in writing my books on scraps of paper in airport terminals or while carrots burned on the stove. It could, however, have unexpected consequences.