Number 3 - Geological Curators Group

THE BEASLEY COLLECTION OF PHOTOGRAPHS AND DRAWINGS OF FOSSIL FOOTPRINTS AND BONES, AND OF FOSSIL AND RECENT SEDIMENTARY STRUCTURES BY WILI-IAM A.S. SARJEANTThe Beasley Collection was assembled by an amateur geologist. Mr Henry C. Beasley of Liverpool, between about 1895 and 1914: it is now owned by the Liverpool Geological Society and held in the Library of the Geology Department, University of Liverpool. The Collection consists of some 3.70 photographs and drawings, the majority of which are of fossil vertebrate footprints (tracks and single prints), together with a few of Triassic vertebrate fossils and invertebrate tracks, and a number of sedimentary structures, Triassic and recent. The photographs are most often mounted on cards, numbered and annotated by Beasley himself; additional annotations were made many years later by Dr J.C. Harper of the University of Liverpool and Dr W.A. Cummins ,of the University of Nottingham. Themajority of the earlier (and some of thelater) photographs were taken for Beasley byfriends or by curators of the collectionswhich contained the specimens. In general,these are of high quality. Later Beasleyacquired his own camera, but unfortunatelyhis own photographs are generally of aninferior standard. In a number of instances.the name of the photographer is given only inabbreviated form (and remains unrecognized)or not at all. The collection also includessome mounted drawings of footprints made byBeasley from published photographs andfigures.The collection was borrowed by me early in1970. Only narrowly did it escapedestruction in the fire which devastated theupper floor of the new Geology building ofthe University of Nottingham in late March ofthat year, the boxes containing thephotographs being charred and the photographssuffering some discoloration. Preparation ofa list was embarked upon, as a prelude todeciding which photographs would be used in ahistorical article I was then preparing onthe study of fossil footprints in the Britishlsles (Sarjeant 1974). So great was theinterest of the collection, however, that 1decided to prepare and circulate a restrictednumber of copies of that list. To increaseits usefulness, supplementary information wasadded to Beasley's notes concerning theplaces of lodgement of specimens, wheneverknown, and the names currently applied to thefootprint ichnotaxa. Since some numbers wereduplicated and some vacant, whilst somephotographs and drawings lacked numbers, 1undertook a limited renumbering of the cardsand photographs for the sake of coherence.Only 100 copies of the list (Sarjeant 1971)were produced, half of these being sent tothe, Liverpool Geological Society. The workFig.1. Portrait of Henry Charles Beasley(1836-1919).has been long out of print and inaccessible;moreover, it contains some minor errors (herecorrected). For these reasons, itsrepublication in a more readily accessibleform seems desirable.In the revised list that follows, Beasley'scomments are contained within inverted commaswhen directly quoted, though it should benoted that his comments have in some casesbeen reordered and that punctuation hassometimes been inserted, to clarify hismeaning. Indirect quotations (summarised oramended) are not enclosed in quotationmarks. His spelling 'Moreton' of the surnameof George Highfield Morton (1826-1900) isretained, although incorrect. Beasley'ssystem of letter designations of footprinttypes is explained in Sarjeant (1974.pp.301-309). the present equivalentichnogeneric and ichnospecific names beingspecified there and herein.