Abstract Waterfalls have long attracted the attention of travellers, some of whom were writers and artists who have left us a cultural legacy of their observations and interpretations. Likewise, geologists have studied and recorded these landscape features since the infancy of their science. An examination of travellers’ experiences of waterfalls since the emergence of Romanticism in eighteenth-century Europe reveals a variety of responses, both utilitarian and aesthetic. Seen as valuable sources of renewable energy, impediments to navigation, beautiful, sublime or picturesque natural wonders and resources for tourism, waterfalls continue to appeal to the Romantic traveller and the pleasure-seeking tourist. Increasingly, waterfalls are being threatened by schemes to exploit them, especially for power generation or intensive tourism development. In many parts of the world, this presents a serious challenge to those responsible for the management of this often spectacular aspect of geodiversity. This paper explores these various themes which are contextualized within the historical and cultural framework of Romanticism.

Abstract The leading lights of the Geological Society announced the birth of a newly scientific form of Earth science by claiming to dissociate geology from the grand theories, theological controversialism and flights of fancy that they felt had dominated eighteenth-century practice. For these gentlemen, geology was to comprise strict empirical induction. They cultivated a historical myth according to which their predecessors had been hopelessly romantic theory-mongers with overactive imaginations, while they themselves were sensible, sober men of science. But if this was so, how did geology succeed in winning such an enormous middle- and upper-class public by the late 1830s? Public support required public interest, and public interest in this period was most easily stirred by the romantic, the speculative and the poetical. Older theories of the Earth remained popular for this very reason, as did biblically literalist reconstructions of Earth history. The challenge for the new school of geology was to dissociate Earth science from the content and methodology of such theories while retaining their accompanying sense of excitement, wonder and pleasure. This paper explores how members and allies of the Geological Society negotiated (or ignored) their own suspicions about the deceptive power of the ‘imagination’ when promoting geology as a science worth the public’s attention.

Abstract There are several, often conflicting, views of what is a desert. In the 1973 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary its definition of deserts included the phrase ‘dry, parched, withered, hence uninteresting’. This somewhat belied the romantic notions in the western world inspired by, among others, Wilfred Thesiger and T. E. Lawrence. At about this time desert regions became very ‘interesting’, gaining a greater significance with the rising price of oil fostering a development boom in many oil-rich countries, especially in the Middle East. During this period early western designed and controlled building and construction projects in the Middle East began to fall foul of a number of geotechnical hazards little understood by professionals whose previous experience had been gained in the temperate regions of the world. Traditional, locally developed techniques were neglected or ignored, as had reported knowledge from valuable experience in the field ( Bagnold 1941 ). Over the last 30 years considerable understanding and experience has been gained of the geomorphological processes and ground characteristics peculiar to desert regions, and their effects on design and construction. Many innovative engineering techniques have been developed and employed, and information on these advances is now widely disseminated in the technical literature. The report of a Geological Society of London Working Party on Tropical Residual Soils ( Fookes 1990 , 1997 ) was the first to consider a particular environment as the focus for an engineering geological handbook. As a natural successor in this approach, this Working Party report on engineering works in

Abstract Archibald Geikie was interested in art and produced c. 700 images in various media. Geikie’s drawings and watercolours evolved in relation to the tradition of links between geology and fine art. This tradition is important in considering Geikie’s visual output. His work in the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland, in England and in France both related to that tradition and responded to differing visual codes of representation in these locations at the time he worked. Specifically, Geikie utilized a Romantic aesthetic while painting in the Scottish Highlands and adopted a more Realist approach in the Lowlands. In France and in England, his visual language can be related to well-established contemporary modes of expression. The significance of these adaptations is discussed.