Color, minor geology

Geology: pencils for drafting cross-sections, hard hat and books, conglomerate.

De Re Metallica

A—Twig. B—Trench.

Prospecting by twig and trench, as shown in one of my favorite books, De Re Metallica by Agricola. Source of image: Wikimedia.

Therefore a miner, since we think he ought to be a good and serious man, should not make use of an enchanted twig, because if he is prudent and skilled in the natural signs, he understands that a forked stick is of no use to him, for as I have said before, there are the natural indications of the veins which he can see for himself without the help of twigs. So if Nature or chance should indicate a locality suitable for mining, the miner should dig his trenches there; if no vein appears he must dig numerous trenches until he discovers an outcrop of a vein.

For a miner must have the greatest skill in his work, that he may know first of all what mountain or hill, what valley or plain, can be prospected most profitably, or what he should leave alone; moreover, he must understand the veins, stringers[1] and seams in the rocks[2]. Then he must be thoroughly familiar with the many and varied species of earths, juices, gems, stones, marbles, rocks, metals, and compounds. He must also have a complete knowledge of the method of making all underground works. Lastly, there are the various systems of assaying substances and of preparing them for smelting; and here again there are many altogether diverse methods.

[1] Fibrae—"fibres." See Note 6, p. 70.

[2] Commissurae saxorum—"rock joints," "seams," or "cracks." Agricola and all of the old authors laid a wholly unwarranted geologic value on these phenomena. See description and footnotes, Book III., pages 43 and 72.

Quotes are from De Re Metallica at Project Gutenburg,
Book II and Book I, respectively.

Read De Re Metallica at Project Gutenburg.
Read De Re Metallica at Internet Archive.

This post has been submitted to Accretionary Wedge #43 at In the Company of Plants and Rocks.

UPDATE: Geologic Illustrations Galore -- Accretionary Wedge #43 is now up!

Banned Books Week Meme

It's Banned Book Week today through October 1, and Dana at En Tequila Es Verdad has, as is her wont, created a banned book meme. Her list is from here, her rules: "I've highlighted the ones I've read in bold. Feel free to do the same, my darlings - and do treat yourself to some delicious literary contraband this week."

1. Harry Potter (series), by J.K. Rowling -- maybe one or two
2. Alice series, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
3. The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
4. And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell
5. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
6. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
7. Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz
8. His Dark Materials (series), by Philip Pullman
9. ttyl; ttfn; l8r g8r (series), by Myracle, Lauren
10. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
11. Fallen Angels, by Walter Dean Myers
12. It’s Perfectly Normal, by Robie Harris
13. Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey
14. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
15. The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
16. Forever, by Judy Blume
17. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker -- saw the movie
18. Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous
19. Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
20. King and King, by Linda de Haan
21. To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
22. Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily von Ziegesar
23. The Giver, by Lois Lowry
24. In the Night Kitchen, by Maurice Sendak
25. Killing Mr. Griffen, by Lois Duncan
26. Beloved, by Toni Morrison -- saw the movie
27. My Brother Sam Is Dead, by James Lincoln Collier
28. Bridge To Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson
29. The Face on the Milk Carton, by Caroline B. Cooney
30. We All Fall Down, by Robert Cormier
31. What My Mother Doesn’t Know, by Sonya Sones
32. Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya
33. Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson
34. The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things, by Carolyn Mackler
35. Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging, by Louise Rennison
36. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
37. It’s So Amazing, by Robie Harris
38. Arming America, by Michael Bellasiles
39. Kaffir Boy, by Mark Mathabane
40. Life is Funny, by E.R. Frank
41. Whale Talk, by Chris Crutcher
42. The Fighting Ground, by Avi
43. Blubber, by Judy Blume
44. Athletic Shorts, by Chris Crutcher
45. Crazy Lady, by Jane Leslie Conly
46. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
47. The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby, by George Beard
48. Rainbow Boys, by Alex Sanchez
49. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey -- saw the movie
50. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
51. Daughters of Eve, by Lois Duncan
52. The Great Gilly Hopkins, by Katherine Paterson
53. You Hear Me?, by Betsy Franco
54. The Facts Speak for Themselves, by Brock Cole
55. Summer of My German Soldier, by Bette Green
56. When Dad Killed Mom, by Julius Lester
57. Blood and Chocolate, by Annette Curtis Klause
58. Fat Kid Rules the World, by K.L. Going
59. Olive’s Ocean, by Kevin Henkes
60. Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson
61. Draw Me A Star, by Eric Carle
62. The Stupids (series), by Harry Allard
63. The Terrorist, by Caroline B. Cooney
64. Mick Harte Was Here, by Barbara Park
65. The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien
66. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred Taylor
67. A Time to Kill, by John Grisham
68. Always Running, by Luis Rodriguez
69. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
70. Harris and Me, by Gary Paulsen
71. Junie B. Jones (series), by Barbara Park
72. Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison
73. What’s Happening to My Body Book, by Lynda Madaras
74. The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold
75. Anastasia (series), by Lois Lowry
76. A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving
77. Crazy: A Novel, by Benjamin Lebert
78. The Joy of Gay Sex, by Dr. Charles Silverstein
79. The Upstairs Room, by Johanna Reiss
80. A Day No Pigs Would Die, by Robert Newton Peck
81. Black Boy, by Richard Wright
82. Deal With It!, by Esther Drill
83. Detour for Emmy, by Marilyn Reynolds
84. So Far From the Bamboo Grove, by Yoko Watkins
85. Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, by Chris Crutcher
86. Cut, by Patricia McCormick
87. Tiger Eyes, by Judy Blume
88. The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
89. Friday Night Lights, by H.G. Bissenger
90. A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeline L’Engle
91. Julie of the Wolves, by Jean Craighead George
92. The Boy Who Lost His Face, by Louis Sachar
93. Bumps in the Night, by Harry Allard
94. Goosebumps (series), by R.L. Stine
95. Shade’s Children, by Garth Nix
96. Grendel, by John Gardner
97. The House of the Spirits, by Isabel Allende
98. I Saw Esau, by Iona and Peter Opie
99. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume
100. America: A Novel, by E.R. Frank

I recommend all the (few) books I've read on this list. All the rest warrant checking into, at the very least.

From About Banned & Challenged Books on the ALA website:

...Free Access to Libraries for Minors, an interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights (ALA's basic policy concerning access to information) states that, “Librarians and governing bodies should maintain that parents—and only parents—have the right and the responsibility to restrict the access of their children—and only their children—to library resources.” Censorship by librarians of constitutionally protected speech, whether for protection or for any other reason, violates the First Amendment.

New Book Meme! NPR Top 100 SF Books

I'm joining the NPR Top SF Book Meme [actually SF/F], which Dana at En Tequila Es Verdad recently created. The basic rules, get the list here or from Dana or at NPR, bold the books you've read. I've added a few things: I've colored blue the books I've seen as movies (sometimes bold blue if I've also read the book), and I've added a few notes, including notes about books I may have read or about series I've read parts of, in orange.

Note: This list was created by voting, so is unlikely, IMO, to be entirely representative of "best." I'm not sure why a few books are even included as being SF/Fantasy (Animal Farm, for example). Also, I haven't read much Stephen King, but normally I don't think of his books as SF/Fantasy as they seem to lean more towards weird horror. But, because I don't read him often, I could be wrong!

Note the Second: There are several series on this list. I have found it hard to stick with series that go much beyond 4 to 6 books, like The Wheel of Time, even if the series is a good one. After a while, I'd like an ending. I've read The Wheel of Time through about 10; there are only four more to go, so maybe I'll finish it someday, maybe not. Some longer collections of stories set in a particular "universe" are easier to stick with, as they routinely have endings (at the end of each book, or at every three or four books).

1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien [book and movie]
2. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
3. Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card
4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert
5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin
6. 1984, by George Orwell
7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov
9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
11. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan - many but not all
13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
14. Neuromancer, by William Gibson
15. Watchmen, by Alan Moore
16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov [book and movie]
17. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein
18. The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss
19. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
20. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
21. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick
22. The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
23. The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King
24. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke
25. The Stand, by Stephen King
26. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
27. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury
28. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
29. The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman
30. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess [movie only]
31. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein - not sure about this one
32. Watership Down, by Richard Adams
33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey
34. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein
35. A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller
36. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells
37. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne [movie only]
38. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys
39. The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells [book and movie]
40. The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny
41. The Belgariad, by David Eddings
42. The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson
44. Ringworld, by Larry Niven
45. The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin
46. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien
47. The Once And Future King, by T.H. White
48. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
49. Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke
50. Contact, by Carl Sagan [probably the movie only]
51. The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons
52. Stardust, by Neil Gaiman -- maybe
53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson
54. World War Z, by Max Brooks
55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle
56. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman -- possibly
57. Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett
58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson -- maybe 1, maybe 2
59. The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold
60. Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett
61. The Mote In God's Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
62. The Sword Of Truth, by Terry Goodkind
63. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
64. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
65. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson [movie only]
66. The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist
67. The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry Brooks
68. The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. Howard -- might have seen the movie
69. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb
70. The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
71. The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
72. A Journey To The Center Of The Earth, by Jules Verne
73. The Legend Of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore
74. Old Man's War, by John Scalzi
75. The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson
76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke
77. The Kushiel's Legacy Series, by Jacqueline Carey
78. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin
79. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury
80. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire
81. The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, by Steven Erikson
82. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde
83. The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks
84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart
85. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson
86. The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher
87. The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe
88. The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn
89. The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldan
90. The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock
91. The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury
92. Sunshine, by Robin McKinley
93. A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge
94. The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac Asimov
95. The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson
96. Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
97. Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis
98. Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville
99. The Xanth Series, by Piers Anthony -- about half of these so far
100. The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis -- the first one only so far

I've read 43, if my memory serves me right, so have quite a ways to go. A few of my favorites from the finalist list that didn't make the top 100:

The Faded Sun Trilogy, by C.J. Cherryh
The Foreigner Series, by C.J. Cherryh
The Tales of Alvin Maker, by Orson Scott Card
Time Enough For Love, by Robert Heinlein

Light and Color on a Cozy Indoor Day

It's cloudy and threatening snow outside, and I'm staying indoors, pretending we have a warm stove radiating heat, drinking coffee mixed with cocoa. This one corner of our little house usually looks fairly uncluttered, and sometimes the plants even get a bit of light. Not today. The upper shelves are stacked with various books, mostly geology or travel related, though not entirely. Titles I can read from here include A Garden of Bristlecones, Blue Highways, Alaska: Saga of a Bold Land, Topo! for Nevada, and Nevada Off the Beaten Path. I recommend all these books, though I can't comment about the Topo! program, as I haven't used it.

I'd say that it's probably cabin fever that's keeping me indoors, but that's not right: surely cabin fever would send me outside despite the dreary weather. It must be something else.
Over near the front door, a door used only to retrieve mail, the plants look bright and cheery, even as if the sun were shining through the clouds, but their color has as much to do with the camera setting as anything else.
Um, maybe it's time for more coffee.

Deep Time

Deep time, geologic time, and the geologic time scale are intertwined concepts relating to the age of the earth, the long epochs, periods, eras, and eons of earth time, a time that is so long compared to our ordinary, everyday time, or even to historic time, that it took some number of years for it to be recognized. We in the west were formally introduced to geologic time by James Hutton, the father of geology. In Theory of Earth, published in 1788, he said:

For having, in the natural history of this earth, seen a succession of worlds, we may conclude that there is a system in nature; in like manner as, from seeing revolutions of the planets, it is concluded, that there is a system by which they are intended to continue those revolutions. But if the succession of worlds is established in the system of nature, it is in vain to look for anything higher in the origin of the earth. The result, therefore, of this physical enquiry is, that we find no vestige of a beginning,—no prospect of an end.

The Persian polymath, Avicenna, had come to a similar conclusion more than 700 years before Hutton:

Either they [mountains] are the effects of upheavals of the crust of the earth, such as might occur during a violent earthquake, or they are the effect of water, which, cutting itself a new route, has denuded the valleys, the strata being of different kinds, some soft, some hard... It would require a long period of time for all such changes to be accomplished, during which the mountains themselves might be somewhat diminished in size. [quoted by Toulmin and Goodfield, 1965]

John McPhee took us a little deeper in 1981, when he introduced the phrase "deep time" as a proxy for geologic time in his book Basin and Range. Prior to that, geologic time was the realm of geologists; since then, deep time has become a part of our everyday vocabulary. John McPhee, in essence, gave geologic time to non-geologists.

As a geologist, I've studied geologic time at least since high school, when I took Earth Science as an elective, extra science. I knew of geologic time prior to that, going back possibly into my early or middle childhood, when I became fascinated with rocks, minerals, volcanoes, trilobites, and dinosaurs, and when I probably learned some of the names of the geologic time periods and eras, such as Cretaceous. (Wikipedia shows the ages, epochs, periods, eras, eons, and supereons of the earth better than the geologic time scale linked to earlier; also see the ICS Geologic Time Scale). Did I understand the vast amount of time involved between trilobites and dinosaurs? I don't know.

I do know that thinking in terms of geologic time has become somewhat commonplace for me, and it seems to be primarily a matter of numbers and scale, and something that I visualize. My life fits inside a linear view, which runs from left to right in front of me: my birth being to the left, today being right in front of me, and my imagined latest years, even somewhat beyond likelihood, being to the right. When I think of history going back to the time change from B.C. to A.D., 1 A.D. is on the left, and everything else is relatively squished as it approaches today, which is still right in front of me. So, what about the 2 million years or so of Pleistocene glacial and interglacial intervals? Now, I've placed the beginning of the Pleistocene over to the left, our general time or the last century is right in front of me. At this point, I can't help but look farther left, beyond the beginning of the Pleistocene, where I can easily see the entire Tertiary back to 65 million years ago.

If I think of all of geologic time — the time frame during which the Earth existed, the last 4.6 billion years — things get even more squished on the end towards our current time, and I've often at this point managed to seat myself firmly in the early Paleozoic, Cambrian maybe, about 600 million years ago. The Precambrian is off to the left, and everything else off to the right. Sometimes I look at this sliding geologic time scale from the end of the Paleozoic, toward the Mesozoic, knowing (even though the Paleozoic rocks and fossils didn't know) that dinosaurs and the massive intrusions of the Sierra Nevada will be coming along as geologic time progresses.

And so, viewing all of geologic time, or particular parts of geologic time, requires me to slide my view to the right and left — or to slide time itself — while expanding or contracting the detail of the time frame, depending on what I want to look at. And when I'm reading about a particular time — whether historic, pre-historic, or geologic — the view often shifts until that the particular time is right in front of me, with time after that, including present time, over to the right.

Another thing I find myself doing when trying to view geologic time — and possibly this happens because I've read so many science fiction books set in countless future timelines — is to include future histories and future geologic time frames in my view, way off to the right. I do this when thinking about the future of the Earth, Solar System, and Universe, and also when thinking about things happening on Voyager in the 24th century (Star Trek timeline), or on the planet Path (Ender’s Universe). Often, this future time looks dark, with a lot of scattered stars and star systems. Or, once again, if I'm reading or watching books or movies set in these future timelines, that present is right in front of me, and our current present — their past — is to the left.

Some time ago, I read In Search of Deep Time by Henry Gee. Early in the book, he gets into a description of deep time, based in part on what John McPhee said in Basin and Range:

McPhee meant the term to refer to the immense intervals, measured in millions of years, disccussed as if they were days or weeks in the conversation of geologists: yet in reality, the intervals of geological time are too long to be readily comprehensible to minds used to thinking in terms of days, weeks and years--decades, at most.

He goes on, after showing a standard geological time chart:

But apart from telling you that Deep Time is long, conventional accounts never consider the implications of the scale of Deep Time on the way we think about evolution [I extrapolate, here, to include other geological occurrences and events]. If, as McPhee says, Deep Time implies intervals more or less incomprehensible to humans, we are entitled to ask whether it is valid to tell stories about evolution according to the conventions of narrative or drama. If it is not, then every story we tell in which causes are linked with effects, and ancestors are linked with descendants, becomes questionable: we can no longer use Deep Time as a backdrop for the stories we tell ourselves about evolution, and how and why we came to be who we are.

Once we realize that Deep Time can never support narratives of evolution, we are forced to accept that virtually everything we thought we knew about evolution is wrong. It is wrong because we want to think of the history of life as a story; but that is precisely what we cannot do. This tension--between Deep Time and the everyday scale of time--is the theme of this book. – Gee, In Search of Deep Time, Introduction

I didn't really find or feel much of that tension when reading his book, and was really looking forward to reading something deeper about deep time. The book, instead, is primarily about certain mechanical aspects of evolution (cladistics), which are really beyond me as a hard rocker, but which were nevertheless fascinating. I can't really comment as to their usefulness, but can refer you to this New York Times review of the book. As a geologist, I disagree that geologic time intervals are too immense to be comprehended. Perhaps it's a conceit for me to think so. Perhaps it's as McPhee says:

Geologists, dealing always with deep time, find that it seeps into their beings and affects them in various ways. ... In geologists' own lives, the least effect of time is that they think in two languages, function on two different scales. – McPhee, Basin and Range

Now, as an aside, I'd like to take deep time in literature farther back than John McPhee, to the "deeps of time" of J.R.R. Tokien.

Quotes from Tolkien on the deeps of time:
Out of the shadows the hobbits peeped, gazing back down the slope: little furtive figures that in the dim light looked like elf-children in the deeps of time peering out of the Wild Wood in wonder at their first Dawn. – The Two Towers, Book III, Chapter 3 [quoted here]

In this elvish sheath dwells the Blade that was Broken and has been made again. Telchar first wrought it in the deeps of time. – The Two Towers, Book III, Chapter 6 [referenced here]

And She that walked in the darkness had heard the Elves cry that cry far back in the deeps of time, and she had not heeded it, and it did not daunt her now. – The Two Towers, Book IV, Chapter 9

As it drew near the great furnaces where, in the deeps of time, it had been shaped and forged, the Ring's power grew, and it became more fell, untamable save by some mighty will. – The Return of the King, Book VI, Chapter 1 [quoted here]

A Few References:
Al-Rawi, M.M., and Al-Hassani, Salim, 2002, The Contribution of Ibn Sina (Avicenna) to the development of Earth Sciences: Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilisation, Publication 4039, 12 p.

Avicenna (Ibn Sina), c 1014-1027, The Book of Healing: editions of the Arabic text were published in Cairo, 1952-83, originally under the supervision of I. Madkour (list of works).

Gee, Henry, 1999, In Search of Deep Time: Beyond the Fossil Record to a New History of Life: The Free Press, New York, N.Y., 267 p.

Hutton, J., 1788, Theory of the Earth: Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. I, Part II, pp.209-304, plates I and II. Hutton's work is available online in several places (Univ Wisconsin, 1788 version with link to 1785 abstract, Project Gutenberg, 1795 version) and also for sale at Amazon.com.

McPhee, John, 1981, Basin and Range: Farrar; Straus & Giroux, New York.

Toulmin, Stephen, and Goodfield, June, 1965, The Discovery of Time. New York: Harper & Row. [Reprinted Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977, 1982.]

More Reading:
Mapping Deep Time (deep time, geologic time, and Hutton)
The "Army of Caterpillars" Tracked Down (Hutton and Dutton)

NOTE: You can now, starting today, follow @GeologicTime on Twitter to find out, "What would 4.6 billion years of Earth history look like [when] represented by one year's worth of tweets?" I suspect that @GeologicTime will be quite busy during the latter months of the year! Read a little more about that project here.

Related Post: Links: Deep Time and Time

Like caterpillars, crawling or marching...

...northward out of or toward Mexico.

On Christmas Day, I went hunting for the source of the widely quoted description of the Basin and Range, starting with my easy-to-find reference in Bill Fiero's Geology of the Great Basin. He said that a long time ago a geologist had compared the mountain ranges of the Basin and Range to "dark fuzzy caterpillars crawling northward" [his words]. He didn't reference the geologist, so I got to wondering and went online. Well, I was already online, but I went farther, into that great Google machine, starting with "basin and range caterpillars," which got me the Wikipedia Basin and Range page and The Basin and Range Province (Coulter, 2005). Both pages state that it was Clarence Dutton who made the analogy, quoting him as saying "army of caterpillars marching toward Mexico" and "an army of caterpillars crawling northward out of Mexico," respectively. You'll immediately notice the double discord: marching v. crawling and toward v. out of.

I was inclined to go with the second quote, because it partly agreed with what Fiero had said, and because at least Coulter (2005) had given a reference, namely to King (1977). Going back to Google with basin and range "army of caterpillars" dutton, I found another reference to "an army of caterpillars crawling northward out of Mexico" by Mac and others (1998), who again cited King (1977), with Dutton being the quotee; and I also found this article (Jensen and Platts, 1990), which quotes Dutton (1880) as saying "army of caterpillars marching to Mexico," reinforcing the quote confusion, but providing the alleged source: Dutton (1880).

So, hence to Dutton's 1880 tome, Geology of the high plateaus of Utah, which is searchable online by various methods, including visual scanning. The quote, if present in that volume in any form, would have to be hidden on a map included in the Atlas (which I also viewed and eliminated), or in the footnotes, many of which I scanned. Searching for "caterpillars" or "Mexico" does not yield the quote; searching for all occurrences of "north" does not yield the quote. I didn't try all occurrences of "out of" or "toward," but did scan all seemingly relevant chapters and sections more than once without results. The problem with search methods other than reading or visual scanning, is that the original is old, so some words don't search properly or have been changed by the various methods of acquisition (e.g., digital scanning) to other words or nonsense words. Also, a word like northward can be broken at the end of a line into "north-" and followed in the next line by "ward." The quote might still be in there somewhere, but I doubt it.

Photo by Ron Schott of Ron Schott's Geology Home Companion Blog

Then, tyring to get some help via Twitter, I was led by @rschott to the above picture, which is from Dante's View at Death Valley National Park. The sign quotes Dutton (1880) as saying, "...like an army of caterpillars crawling toward Mexico...." Darn, there for a minute I thought the caterpillars crawled when going north, and marched when going south!

Ron Schott also found an old reference to the quote, wherein Keyes (1920) said that Dutton "likens [the ranges] on the map to an army of caterpillars crawling northward out of Old Mexico." This is the oldest reference (so far), perhaps giving credence to the northward crawling aspect of the alleged Basin and Range quote. Additionally, at least one reference (Udall, 1998) has Dutton "quipping," suggesting that Dutton might have been speaking at a meeting rather than writing a report.

Another tidbit in this intensive reference hunt: I found one endnote (in Goin and Starrs, 2005) that states:

"army of caterpillars" is without a doubt Clarence Dutton's comment, but exact attribution is impossible – although everyone knows he wrote or said it, chapter and verse are undocumented in our experience, but it is quoted by John McPhee in Basin and Range (1981).

I couldn't find the quote or a reference to Dutton in Basin and Range.

Basins and ranges in central Nevada

And then things got interesting.

This search led to a more detailed quote from Dutton: "composed of many short, abrupt ranges looking upon the map like an army of caterpillars crawling northward. At length the army divides into two columns...." I couldn't, however, search farther in that book (Anderson, 1977), or find where Dutton said that. Later, on Boxing Day, I used this search confining the timing to 1879 to 1921, and found this long reference to Dutton's description of the desert mountains or arid ranges of the west (Keyes, 1909), though it isn't explicitly a quote:

Upon the map Dutton has likened them to an army of caterpillars crawling northward out of Mexico, dividing as it enters the United States, the main body turning westward and then northward again until it passes into the British possessions.

I was pretty sure at this point that we had narrowed it down to, more or less, "an army of caterpillars crawling northward out of Mexico," but I still couldn't find the reference!

I then went a little farther, using this search to reveal even more of the Dutton quote, still with no viewable reference (Anderson, 1977):

"...composed of many short abrupt ranges looking upon the map like an army of caterpillars crawling northward. At length the army divides into two columns, one marching northwest, the other north-north east."

Anderson (1977) then goes on to say, "Hence the Great Basin's ranges, and the Rockies...," implying that the quote refers to the entire west, not just the Basin and Range.

By this time, I was ready to finish up this blog post and move on, so I grabbed another view of the west from Google Earth...
And then, late in the afternoon, another link came in from Twitter, this time from @microecos, who blogs here. It's the full and entire quote, with the source! Dutton (1886) says:

The great belt of Cordilleras coming up through Mexico and crossing into United States territory is depicted as being composed of many short, abrupt ranges or ridges, looking upon the map like an army of caterpillars crawling northward. At length, about 150 miles north of the Mexican boundary, this army divides into two columns, one marching northwest, the other north-northeast The former branch becomes the system of mountain ridges spread over the southern and western portions of Arizona, the whole of Nevada and the western portion of Utah and extending into Oregon and Idaho.

What he goes on to say from there, makes it clear that the western army going to the northwest (to begin with) is the Basin and Range of Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Oregon, and Idaho, and the eastern army, going to the north-northeast (to begin with) is the Rocky Mountains.

Check it out for yourself, right here!

How many times has Dutton been misquoted? Not sure, but I'd say tens of times—or more! I own at least two such misquotes, myself (the caterpillars crawling or marching to or toward Mexico rather than crawling northward). Surprisingly, the misquoting began as early as 1915!

Some References:
Anderson, R.S., 1977, A biography of Clarence Edward Dutton (1841-1912), nineteenth century geologist and geographer: Stanford University, 252 pp.

Coulter, Poppy, 2005, The Basin and Range Province: Volcanoes of the Eastern Sierra Nevada,: Geology and Natural Heritage of the Long Valley Caldera, at Indiana University Geological Sciences (a field course website).

Dutton, C.E., 1880, Geology of the high plateaus of Utah: U.S. Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region, vol. 32, 307 pp, with Atlas.

Review of Dutton's 1880 monograph at Magma Cum Laude

Dutton, C.E., 1886, Mount Taylor and the Zuni Plateau, p. 105-198 in Volume III of Report of the Secretary of the Interior; being part of the Message and Documents Communicated to the Two Houses of Congress at the Beginning of the First Session of the Forty Ninth Congress in Five Volumes: Washington, Government Printing Office.

Fiero, Bill, 1986, Geology of the Great Basin: University of Nevada Press, 198 pp.

Goin, Peter, and Starrs, P.F., 2005, Black Rock, Volume 2004: University of Nevada Press, 273 pp.

Jensen, S.E., and Platts, W.S., 1990, Restoration of degraded riverine/riparian habitat in the Great Basin and Snake River Regions, p. 367-404 in J.A. Kusler and M.E. Kentula (eds.) Wetland Creation and Restoration: The Status of the Science. Island Press, Washington, D.C. 591 pp.

Keyes, C.R., 1909, Lineaments of the desert: Popular Science Monthly, v. 74, p. 19-30.

Keyes, Charles, 1920, Paleozoic Diastrophics of the Northern Mexican Tableland: The Journal of Geology, vol. 28, no. 1, p. 75-83.

King, P.B., 1977, The Evolution of North America: Princeton University Press, 216 pp.

Mac, M. J., Opler, P. A., Puckett Haecker, C. E., and Doran, P. D., 1998, Great Basin—Mojave Desert Region in Status and trends of the nation’s biological resources Vol. 2: U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA, p. 437-964.

McPhee, John, 1981, Basin and Range: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 215 pp.

Rice, W.N., Adams, F.D., Coleman, A.P., Walcott, C.D., Lindgren, Waldemar, Ransome, F.L., and Matthew, W.D., 1915, Problems of American geology: a series of lectures dealing with some of the problems of the Canadian shield and of the Cordilleras: Yale University Press, 505 pp.

Udall, S.L., 1998, The myths of August: a personal exploration of our tragic Cold War affair with the atom: Rutgers University Press, 412 pp.

A Few Google Book Searches:
clarence dutton caterpillars
dutton caterpillars crawling (1879-1921)
dutton caterpillars crawling northward divides northeast
abrupt ranges looking upon the map like an army of caterpillars

Geological Mysteries (Of the Book Kind)

So far, in the Frankie McFarlane mystery series by Susan Cummins Miller, I've read these books, listed by title, publication date, series number; the ones I haven't read yet are in parentheses.

Hoodoo, 2008, #4
Quarry, 2006, #3
Death Assemblage, 2002, #1
Detachment Fault, 2004 #2
(Fracture, scheduled 2011, #5)

In the Em Hansen mystery series by Sarah Andrews, I've read these books, by title, publication date, series number (ones I haven't read are in parentheses):

(Tensleep, 1994, #1)
(A Fall in Denver, 1995, #2)
(Mother Nature, 1997, #3)
An Eye For Gold, 2000, #6
Only Flesh and Bones, 1998, #4
Bone Hunter, 1999, #5
Fault Line, 2002, #7
Killer Dust, 2003, #8
Earth Colors, 2004, #9
Dead Dry, 2005, #10

I read An Eye for Gold first, after the author gave a talk about her books at a GSN meeting in Reno a few years back. I've followed on with several other books by both authors more recently, but not always in the correct order. Reading either of these series in order provides continuity with regard to the heroines' lives, but otherwise isn't necessary (though I do recommend it). At the moment, I'm enjoying the Frankie McFarlane stories more than the Em Hansen stories: the geologists seem more realistic to me, and the books seem to have less of an emphasis on romance than than in the Em Hansen books I've read so far. But I recommend all of them!

I'll try to update my reading of these books on this post - if I remember!

A Few (Mostly) Late January 2010 Geoblogic Links

Here, in non-chronological order, are a few of the geoblogospheric posts that have caught my eye recently.

A photo of megabreccia on Mars at Arizona Geology. (I love breccias!)

A great aerial view of Lassen Peak at Geotripper, part of his Other California series.

Coal and the fossil record of climate change in the Canadian High Arctic by Anne Jefferson of Highly Allochthonous.

The answer to something I've always wondered: Inkstain FAQ at jfleck at inkstain: What’s With the Easy-Do Parties Lady? at jfleck at inkstain.

A 1000^th geblogospheric post: 1K at NOVA Geoblog—and read the comments.

Sand posts at Ron Schott's Geology Home Companion: Salt and Pepper, White, Multicolored, Green, and Black—my favorites are the S&P, multicolored, and green (at least today).

And speaking of sand, more on the continuing and neverending story of Sand: The Neverending Story: A virtual book tour by Michael Welland, so far at Clastic Detritus and NOVA Geoblog, soon to be at Andrew Alden's About.com Geology and BLDGBLOG.

And, in case you haven't already seen this, the results of the recent geoblogosphere survey by Lutz Geissler, Robert Huber, and Callan Bentley at geoberg.de.

If you are going to the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show in February, contact Lee Allison of Arizona Geology about a Geoblogger get together.

And finally, I loved seeing this mix of art and geology: a review of the Geo Sapiens Geologic Art Exhibit at Clastic Detritus; the full exhibit is at the Two Wall Gallery.

15 Book Meme

This book meme has been lying around in my draft folder for quite sometime, and I was just reminded of it today when reading the Bragging Rights Archive II at VWXYNot. While reading that archive I remembered that I had been tagged for this meme by virtue of having fallen out of a sailboat - at least once. The possible first time was in my childhood, and it may have been someone else who fell out, thereby leaving me with a permanent scar after imagining how terrible falling out would be. The for-sure second time was in Washoe Lake, Nevada, after the boom swung across the boat, causing me to fall out and the boat to tip over all at the same time. Falling out of boats of any kind is one of my least favorite things in the world; it can involve being in water over your head rather suddenly. In this particular instance, the sailboat was not rightable - after we both made it back to the boat to give it a try - because it turned out that the mast had no cover on top, so had completely filled with water. We had to drag it close to shore, it upside down - and several people got involved in the righting. Not me. Being there - hanging on to an upside down boat while my boating partner drifted away, then getting resucued by another sailboat, and then making the righting attempt while thoroughly waterlogged - had been enough for me.

Oh, back to the book meme. The official rules of the meme are "list fifteen books that had the most profound impact on you - ones you can think of in fifteen minutes or less." And here's where things slow down: 15 books? Which ones? Most profound effect, or just the ones I remember right off the bat? Or some combination of the two, perhaps?

Dune
Foundation Trilogy (is that 3?)
Hobbit and Lord of the Rings Trilogy (is that 4?)
Time Enough for Love - much more so than Stranger in a Strange Land.
Nightfall
Flowers for Algernon
Childhood's End - the only Arthur C. Clarke book I ever liked.
Catch-22
Cat's Cradle
The Martian Chronicles
Fahrenheit 451
The Mote in God's Eye
1984
East of Eden - or The Grapes of Wrath.
The Secret Garden

I'd like to list something heavy, like De Re Metallica, but really, I don't think that's what caused me to become an Economic Geologist, although it is a very good book on mining and prospecting, published in 1556.

I would also like to state, for the record, that at a certain time in my life I was considerably impressed with Ayn Rand. At the time, it was fairly common for people in college to read her books, almost like some kind of cult thing - I swear these were the same people also listening to the Grateful Dead, but I could be wrong. Three of her books have left some lasting impression on me, not entirely positive, especially after seeing part of one movie rendition, and after realizing retrospectively how the women in her books were characterized in a partly sexist, though strong, fashion. At this point, the only book I think worth reading if you haven't yet read any of her writing is We the Living.

I'm not sure if 1984 belongs on the list, but I put it there because I thought of it relatively quickly, and because the effect was strong. Fortunately, the strongest effects (rats) have faded with time. Perhaps one of the Russian novels should be listed instead, maybe One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch or Master and Man.

As for tagging, this is a fairly old meme, so if you'd like to play, consider yourself tagged - also, any and all readers who had vegetable gardens this summer can consider themselves tagged.

Friday - Back from the Road

Yes, we are finally back at our little house, back from being gone for a whole two weeks, traveling back and forth between Reno and the lake - back and forth, back and forth - more times than I care to mention. We stopped in Middlegate on our return; hence the photo, looking to the east through the window and screen door of Middlegate Station toward Middlegate The Place. My mind feels just about as clear as the hills and mountains look.
The night before, Middlegate The Place, with the Shoe Tree visible through the notch, looked serene in the evening light, as the sun went down and turned the Desatoya Mountains red.
Looking the other way, West Gate showed no sign of it's usual windmill, which was still lying on the ground waiting for repairs when we drove through.

Care to make a phone call?

We had great burgers, decent to good beers, and played a few uninspired games of pool. The usual Middlegate drama was taking place in the bar, though we heard only bits and pieces, off and on.

I'm in some kind of muddle-headed state and somewhat incapacitated regarding decisions about travel - which courses and field trips should I take, what stops along the way should I make. I'm travel-worn and peopled out. (People-worn and traveled out?)

Above: Tangled, prickly, but still blooming (Russian thistle AKA tumbleweed ).

Prior to leaving two weeks ago, I had plans to visit yet another past field area in the next couple or three days, then non-finalized plans for side trips on the way to and from the coming GSA meeting. I have, today, been wondering about changing my GSA plans (once again) in order to make it to a poorly scheduled SEG field workshop on uranium deposits in Albuquerque, which would mean flying to Portland instead of driving, would mean leaving GSA two days early because the course overlaps with the meeting even though they call it "post-meeting," and would mean flying from Portland to Albuquerque and then flying back to some possibly nearby (or not) western airport.

Or, instead of that, I could go to an expensive field course on copper deposits in Arizona, which conveniently follows - by several days so as not to be too crowded in time and place - the Northwest Mining Association Convention in December. The copper course is run by people who know what they are doing. (Not that the uranium course isn't, mind you.) I'll probably do the latter (copper). I'd need to sign up for the uranium course today; I'll need to sign up for the copper course by next weekend. Besides, the price of copper is holding; the price of uranium isn't.

The sign said Middlegate, but where were we, really?

While crossing Eighmile Flat on our way to Middlegate, we were approached rapidly from behind by two flashing, wailing, Churchill County sheriff vehicles. They beat us to Middlegate by several minutes. Why were they there? Does anyone really know? Hopefully the answer will not be found in Stephen King's Desperation, which I am currently reading.

Other questions need to be answered - will I stay one night with a cousin on my way up to Portland? Will I spend more than one night at the lake on the way? Will I make an Oregon detour on my way back? Or should I just blow all that off and fly up to Alaska for about a week. Maybe I'll just stay here and stare at a wall until I regain some internal mental composure.

Links: Blowpipe Tests

Blowpipe analysis - the determination of elements present in minerals by use of a blowpipe - was not taught when I was in school, but was routinely used by geologists of my dad's era. I probably missed learning this skill by only a few years: blowpipe testing was being taught during the early 1950's; it was not being taught where I went to school by the early 1970's.

A bit about the history of blowpipe analysis can be found here. Some examples of some old, collectible blowpipe kits can be seen here and here. Blowpipe tests are still described in some rock and mineral field guides and in some mineralogy texts - for example, in Dana's Minerals and How to Study Them and in Rocks, Gems and Minerals: Revised and Updated.

For the record, the mineralogy textbook I used in school was probably this one: Dana's Manual of Mineralogy, 18th Edition by Cornelius S. Hurlbut, Jr., 1971; the one I have now is Manual of Mineralogy (after James D. Dana, 21st Edition by Cornelis Klein and Cornelius S. Hurlbut, Jr., 1993 in hardback. If you search the latter book on Amazon.com for "blowpipe tests," you will come up with erroneous results, because the search-inside feature switches to a completely different book (Manual of mineralogy, including observations on mines, rocks, reduction of ores and the applications of the science to the arts, Dana, 1855 - here's the 1876 version at Open Library), not just a different editition as it says. My 1993 edition doesn't mention blowpipes at all!

More Blowpipe Links:
Brush, G. J., and Penfield, S. L., 1906, Manual of determinative mineralogy and blowpipe analysis (Mineralogical Research Company used books); read, search, or download this book here. The Manual has a with a Table of Flame Colorations on page 136; you also can peruse a modified version of this table, Table of Flame Colorations and Emission Spectra, at webmineral.com.

Elderhorst, W., 1861, A manual of blowpipe-analysis, and determinative mineralogy, Elderhorst: The Internet Archive

Dana, S., and Ford, W. E., 1912, Dana's manual of mineralogy for the student of elementary mineralogy, the mining engineer, the geologist, the prospector, the collector, etc: The Internet Archive

Getman, F. H., 1899, The elements of blowpipe analysis: The Internet Archive.

links last updated on 30Jul2023

Summer Reading List Meme

I haven't been terribly good about finishing books I've started in the last year, so I've taken a few off the list and put them out of my sight, at least for now. Nevertheless, I still have a reading list, including a few re-reads.

• Sweet Promised Land - Robert Laxalt



• Sand: The Never-Ending Story - Michael Welland (his blog is at Through the Sandglass)



• The Hard Road West: History and Geology along the Gold Rush Trail - Keith Heyer Meldahl (my dad has been waiting for me to finish this one so I could respond to his request, "let me know if the geologic history of the Basin and Range is correct
  in the Hard Road [West].")



• A Mine of Her Own: Women Prospectors in the American West, 1850-1950 - Sally Zanjani (I may have read this before in the 1980's)



• Geo-Logic: Breaking Ground between Philosophy and the Earth Sciences - Robert Frodeman (This one looks a little dense, to me, but it's on my list, and I want to get through at least some of the chapters)

Sweet Promised Land falls into the catetgory of a re-read. The book is a biography of Dominique Laxalt, a Basque sheepherder in Nevada, as written by his father, Robert Laxalt. I first read the book sometime in the 1980's. I highly recommend this 50th anniversary edition (it was first published in 1957).

This summer reading-list meme seems to be predicated on listing seven books, but I'm not going to push my luck and will only list five. I have already completed the two books listed below - in the last two months, no less! I'm encouraged by that, and by the fact that I know I'll finish Sweet Promised Land. Finished:

• Not Becoming my Mother: And Other Things She Taught Me along the Way - Ruth Reichl



• Annie's Ghosts: A Journed into a Family Secret - Steve Luxenberg

Yay for already finishing two books! Much better than my 2008 book-reading record (except for some escapist paperbacks).

Other book lists can be seen at Clastic Detritus, Reporting on a Revolution, and The Dynamic Earth.

BBC Book List

This is a variant of the BBC book meme seen around, including at Sciencewomen. I've taken the book list below directly from the BBC site, which lists the top 100 favorite books by their readers, from a poll they initiated in April, 2003 - so it's different from the lists seen on most sites recently. Possibly the list morphed on its way through the internet. Maybe.

Current meme rules (from Sciencewoman):
1) Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read. (I'll bold those I've read and italicize those of which I only read part.)
2) Add a '+' to the ones you LOVE.
3) Star (*) those you plan on reading.
[Note: I've added ones I've seen in movie only/maybe version in blue]

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien X+
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams X
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling [saw movie maybe]
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee X+
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne X
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell X
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis [movie only]
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller X+
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger X-
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame X
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens X
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott X+
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy X+
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell X+
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling [movie only]
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling [movie maybe]
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling [movie maybe]
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien X+
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck X+
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll X
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens X
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl X
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson X
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert X+
40. Emma, Jane Austen [saw movie for sure]
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams X+
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald X-
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell X
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens X+
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett X+
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck X
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy X
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell X
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky X+
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens X+
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding [saw both movies]
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar [saw movie only]
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy X
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley X
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac *
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo X
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel X+
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho X
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

Have read 34.

The truth is, there are many books that lump together in my mind, or for which I've maybe seen a movie. These books were never favorites, although some of the movies were alright (and I'm not sure which movies I've seen, either). These books/movies would include Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Middlemarch, and Emma. I'm also unsure about much of the Dickens I've read - it blends together.

I really don't have any plans to read any of the books on the list, except maybe On The Road, by Kerouac, which I think about reading but usually don't get past the buying part.

I think the previous book list back in April had better books on it (or at least more books I'd read!). It was called "The 106 Books Most often Marked Unread by Library Thing Users."