As Scotland struggles with questions of independence, the might be seen as making its own geopolitical gesture by republishing the most ambitious of the early geological studies of Scotland, originally released in 1836. This splendid map was the handiwork of , a geologist and troubled soul of Scots descent.
MacCulloch never saw his tour de force published. Born in 1773, he was elected one of the first members of the recently founded Geological Society of London in 1808, and served as its president from 1816 to 1818. MacCulloch started his geological survey of Scotland in 1811. It was a huge task, given the country鈥檚 complex topography and geology, and the poor quality of the base map he had to work from. In 1821, he tried to persuade the Treasury in London to publish his map but there were endless delays 鈥� perhaps partly due to MacCulloch鈥檚 rancorous personality, which seems to have alienated everyone he worked with 鈥� and he threatened to hang or shoot himself in protest. By the time it was finally published in 1836, MacCulloch was dead, killed the previous year in a carriage accident while on honeymoon in Cornwall, about as far away from Scotland as it is possible to be on mainland Britain.
MacCulloch鈥檚 geological method was outmoded 鈥� he regarded the recognition of strata by their fossils as best left to 鈥渘amby pamby cockleologists鈥� 鈥� but his main geological boundaries are still recognised today. This is the third edition of the map, issued in 1840. Granite is shown as orange, limestone as pink and quartz as green.
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