42 THE ORDNANCE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY CHAP, n 



of the United Kingdom, on the ground that, for want 

 of the proper preservation of such records, great loss 

 of life and destruction of property had taken place. 

 This petition having been favourably received, De la 

 Beche was authorised to form a Mining Record Office 

 as part of the Craig s Court establishment. Plans and 

 sections of mines were obtained from various mining 

 districts, steps were taken to procure statistics of 

 mineral industry, and in 1840 the Mining Record 

 Office thus started was committed to the charge of 

 T. B. Jordan, a man of remarkable ingenuity, who had 

 been Secretary of the Royal Polytechnic Society of 

 Cornwall. It was further arranged that lectures should 

 be given on the subjects illustrated by the Museum. 1 



When he had completed, with so little aid, the 

 survey of the south-western counties, and had roused 

 the Government of the day to some appreciation of at 

 least the industrial value of his work, De la Beche 

 resolved to transfer his field - operations to South 

 Wales, where an important coal-field awaited examina 

 tion. Still under the Board of Ordnance, he obtained 

 increased parliamentary grants, and was allowed the 

 services of a few assistants young men with no geo 

 logical experience, whom he had to train in all the 

 details of geological mapping. 



The field-work had been a year or two in progress 

 in South Wales when Andrew C. Ramsay joined the 

 staff. Referring to this period of his life at a much 

 later time, he remarked : * In the year 1841 I had the 

 good fortune to be appointed one of the few assistant 

 geologists. The Survey had then progressed west- 



1 For the early history of the Museum of Economic Geology and Mining 

 Record Office see the Account of them byT. Sopwith (see p. 78), published by Murray 

 in 1840. See also Buckland, Proc. Geol. Soc. iii. (1840), pp. 211, 221. The 

 Mining Record Office was transferred to the Home Office in 1883. 



