Richard Fallon

So the Internet Archive is down (at least for me), BHL is down (at least for me), Google Books is hit and miss, HathiTrust is good but much weaker for the UK... Are we just going back to physical media?

The tree outside is living its best autumn.

Frankly I'm just getting gossip from the 1890 Sedgwick biography, which haa great snippets about the rogues gallery of former Woodwardian professors. I enjoyed this disgusting ornament:

A carved sandstone frieze from the 1950s depicting a forest scene with what appears to be a Triceratops, two Rhamphorhynchus-like pterosaurs, two small creatures (possibly mammals?), a Stegosaurus, two Archaeopteryx-like birds, a temnospondyl amphibian, and two sauropods. All of these are plausibly Jurassic, except for the Triceratops, so I'm not sure where that came from. Stegosaurus and Triceratops are North American, and Archaeopteryx is European, but sauropods, temnospondyls, and distant relatives of Stegosaurus are all found in Australia.

The University of Queensland has this frieze, and several carvings all around the Great Court area.

Many animals, including dinosaurs, elephants, trilobites, horseshoe crabs, sea stars, etc. are carved into the molding of the Biological Sciences building on the campus of Cal Tech.

I large crab is carved into the side of the Biological Sciences building on the campus of Cal Tech.

Not furniture, but there are a variety of prehistoric and modern animal life carved into the molding of the Biology Dept. at Cal Tech.

frise de Sylvestre Clerc, 1932

Pas sur les meubles, mais sur les murs de ma bibliothèque, il y a des dinos et des pterosaures chelou (bibliothèque d'étude et du patrimoine, Toulouse)

A photograph of a scene in a library - a wooden desk, with carved ammonites and a very uncomfortable looking wooden chair are in the foreground. A microscope and book are on the desk. In the background is a bookshelf with a large number of old books, a card index cabinet, and a wallchart with a picture of a Pareiasaurus skull. There is also a white plaster bust of Friedrich August von Quenstedt behind the desk.

There is Quenstedt's magnificent desk with ammonite carvings in the Tübingen palaeontological collections:

As far as I can see the design is less ornately themed inside, which is why it's nice to see these occasional extra touches.

Yeah, it's a touch they didn't need to add, but did.

A literary Iguanodon at the Earth Sciences Library. Do any other libraries have dinosaurs or other antediluvian creatures carved into the furniture?

Lead the Curran Index as Our New Editor – RSVP RSVP seeks a new Editor or Editors to lead the Curran Index! Applications should be sent to VP Alison Chapman by October 15.

Are you doing #19thC attribution research? Do you have DH skills and nowhere to use them? YOU could be the next editor of the Curran Index! We're still accepting applications thru next week on 15 Oct. Lead this ongoing + fully supported DH project into its next iteration! rs4vp.org/curran-edito...

A heron of the Cam.

Agostino Scilla's sketch of a shark in La vana speculazione disingannata dal senso (1670). This is Scilla's pencil sketch version in the @sedgwickmuseum.bsky.social archives. Wish my vain speculations could be undeceived by sense! Ah well.

Title page of John Woodward's An Attempt towards a Natural History of the Fossils of England.

According to one (hostile) contemporary, Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach, viewing John Woodward's celebrated museum of fossils was a trying experience. Woodward allegedly bored visitors by quoting 'whole pages of his works' and spent the entire time admiring himself in 'mirrors hanging in every room'

Very excited to find the advent calender with my NHM artwork already in our local Marks 'n' Sparks! Had to buy one even if it was just for the cool cutouts on the back! Now I'll be able to act out the classic T.rex v Trike confrontation!

Framed plaster slab with three mounted Miniochoerus skeletons

This adorable oreodont family has had quite a journey. Paul Miller made this mount for the U of Chicago Walker Museum in 1924. They were transferred to the Field when the Walker shut down, then loaned to the BYU museum for 60 years. The oreodonts are now back in Chicago. #FossilFriday

Engraving of a sceptical-looking bewigged man.

Charles Mason, Woodwardian Professor of Fossils at Cambridge, 1734–1762. According to one contemporary, the 'coarse and slovenly' Mason 'could ornament a subject at the same time that he disgusted and disgraced Society'.

Splendidhand model of Jobin stegosaur against rocky backdrop, info card in shot.

Splendidhand model of Jobin stegosaur against rocky backdrop.

Splendidhand model of Jobin stegosaur against rocky backdrop.

Splendidhand model of Jobin stegosaur against rocky backdrop, close up.

You've likely seen Auguste Jobin's 1884 reconstruction of Stegosaurus, in which it's portrayed as a spiny-backed, long-necked biped. Great news! Splendidhand Toys have produced a model of Jobin's vision, I'm proud to own one :) Get your own at... www.etsy.com/uk/listing/4... #dinosaurs

A Planorbis discus from the Bembridge Limestone of the Isle of Wight, presented to the @sedgwickmuseum.bsky.social by none other than Lord Tennyson. There rolls the deep where grew the tree!

Grillosaurus, Dyrodor, Filarmura, Stegoceratops, Monocornus... probablemente no te suenen estos #dinosaurios o 'dinosauroides', porque todos ellos son nomen ignotum. Es decir, son criaturas del pasado que sólo existen en los mundos de ficción. Te cuento más... [1/9]

Shaggy sculpted aurochs on the stairway to the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences.

New job, new aurochs.

Nudibranchs as pictured by a Japanese illustrator named Kumataro Ito, artist for the USS Albatross’ Philippine Expedition, 1907–10. More of his stunning images here: publicdomainreview.org/collection/k...

Interesting New Yorker cover spotted.

Black and white scanned newspaper photo . A smartly dressed boy and girl study a fresh looking Crystal Palace Mosasaurus. The lake water level appears non-existent. The caption: “The collection of models of antediluvian monsters on an island in the grounds of the Crystal Palace has now been extracted from the mud and renovated. Teeth and claws have been sharpened, eyes painted, and everything done to make them as attractive as possible.”

Articles or photos that reference the condition of the Crystal Palace Dinos before 1950 are quite rare.

The caption on this photo, dated as 1924, refers them being “extracted from the mud”, which could imply a period of time where the lake also needed some attention..

A high street endling: there's one small, lonely, desolate fish still alive in the empty aquarium in what used to be Holy Moly, and the Japanese restaurant, on Harborne high street. Reminds me of Lafcadio Hearn's essay about the cricket he forgot to feed.

YouTube video by spartakirk109 'V' by Tony Harrison

Very sad to hear of the passing of Tony Harrison, a truly great #working-class poet. Probably best known for ‘V’ but fwiw I think his ‘School of Eloquence’ & ‘Continuous’ collections are outstanding.

youtu.be/FA3AL14d05k?...

Medieval manuscript illustration of a serpent twisted around a fruit tree, whispering in the ear of Eve who stands beside Adam, each holding a fig leaf in front of their genitals.

wamm-sceaþa, m.n: evil-doer, sinner, criminal. (WAHM-SHEH-ah-tha / ˈwam-ˌʃɛa-θa)
Image: Silos Apocalypse; N Spain (Santo Domingo de Silos), 1091-1109; @britishlibrary.bsky.social Add MS 11695, f. 40r.
#OldEnglish #WOTD

This is HUGE. Unconditional #repatriation of 28,000 fossils from the Dubois collection to Indonesia. Largest ever fossil and perhaps natural history #restitution (AFAIK). Famous #hominin fossil included. Lots of things to unpack, here are some preliminary thoughts. /1

El Toxodonte is having a good rest.

Wikipedia text: By presenting the poem in the imperative, Auden sketches attention to it, according to the scholar John G. Blair.[12] In 2009 the scholar Heidi Hartwig argued that the poem could be read and interpreted in many different ways, depending on how and by whom it was presented.[13] Joseph Warren Beach notes that in the revised version of the poem, the first two stanzas are tied to the everyday world, referencing mundane things such as airplanes and telephones. Conversely, the two new stanzas reference things more common to typical ballads, such as the ocean or the heavens. The two halves "have an underlying tone of cosmic disillusion characteristic of the interwar period." He considers that piecing the halves together makes the poem "lively" and appealing to various readers.[5]

For some crazy reason I feel that Wikipedia isn't doing justice to Auden's 'Funeral Blues'.