| Description | One single sheet with hand coloured plans and sections of trap dykes and raised beaches on Jura, Scotland, created by Captain James Vetch. The plans illustrate the trap dykes on the West Coast of Jura, which are “extremely numerous and remarkable for preserving courses nearly parallel to each, and nearly in the line of dip of the quartz rock which they traverse” (GSL/OM/1/2). Further illustrations show the effect the dykes have on the adjacent strata and on the direction of the magnet at Beinn an Oir, the highest peak on the island of Jura. The section illustrates the manner in which the ancient beaches of Jura occur on the opposite shores of Loch Tarbert.
The dimensions of the document are 262mm by 282mm.
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| Administrative History | Captain James Vetch was an officer in the Royal Engineers who carried out significant mapping and surveying work. He was elected a fellow of the Geological Society in 1818 and of the Royal Society in 1830, in which year he was a founder fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He became an associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1839 and a member of the Societe Francaise de Statistique Universelle in 1852, and was a member of other learned bodies.
Vetch was born in Haddington, Scotland on 13 May 1789, the third son of Robert Vetch and Agnes Sharp. He was educated at Haddington and Edinburgh and in 1805 he joined the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich. In 1806 he joined the Trigonometrical Survey at Oakingham, in Berkshire, as Assistant-Engineer, and received a commission as second Lieutenant in the corps of Royal Engineers. He served in the Peninsula War, having advanced to the rank of Captain by 1813.
In 1821 Vetch was appointed to the Ordnance Survey and was employed in mapping the Orkney and Shetland Islands. In 1824 he retired on half pay and moved to Mexico where he managed a number of silver mines. He returned to the UK in 1835 and in the following year was given the task of settling the boundaries of the Irish parliamentary boroughs. He spent four years as engineer to the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway and was employed by various government agencies for his expertise in reclaiming tidal lands.
In 1842 he was employed by Leeds Town Council to produce a system of drainage for the borough and in 1843 worked with Sir Henry Thomas De la Beche on a scheme of drainage for Windsor Castle and the royal parks. In 1849 Vetch was appointed a member of the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers, during which time he designed a new sewerage system for the Southwark area.
He had been employed as a consulting engineer by the admiralty since 1846, and in 1853 he became sole Conservator of Harbours. He held this post until his retirement in 1863.
He died in London on 7 December 1869 and was buried in Highgate Cemetery. Vetch published many papers, mostly in connection with the engineering projects on which he was engaged, but also on other geographical and archaeological topics. |
| Publication Note | Presented on 27 June 1823 at a meeting of the Geological Society of London, along with a paper entitled "Observations on the Quartz rock mountains of the West of Scotland and North of Ireland, more particularly those of Jura, with an account of the ancient Beaches and Trap Dikes of that Island".
Paper later published as: Vetch, Capt. "Account of some Terraces, or ancient Beaches, in the Isle of Jura", 'Transactions of the Geological Society of London', series 2, vol 1 (1824), pp416-417. Images not published, published paper also does not mention dykes. |