Well, the first article is something that was inspired in Autumn 1998 by Corresponding Fellow, Dennis R. Dean, who suggested a piece to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the 1850 meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Well, we missed that anniversary last year (blame it on time passing ever more quickly), but here is the article now, and fascinating it is. 

There then follows a splendid article by Dr. Isles Strachan on maps and legends. Dr. Strachan laments the passing of the old and familiar scheme for labelling geological maps. The story of map symbols must be an interesting subject. Does anyone know, for example, why the 'brick' symbol was chosen to denote limestone and when this was first used? It would also be interesting to compare the old legend scheme with the new one adopted in the last few years by the British Geological Survey. 

Kenneth Aitken, who has been living in Germany for several years now but who has remained a member of the Society, has sent in an article for the series WHAT'S IN A NAME? Since moving there, his German must have been gradually improving and now that he has picked up a lot of geological words, he finds that he is able to baffle even the native speakers! He shares some of those geological words with us in his What's in a German Name? 

An active RIGS Volunteer Group meets once a month on Wednesdays in Murchison House. A report on what they have been doing has been contributed by three of their members... three very familiar names too. Dates of forthcoming meetings are published from time to time in the Society's billet or can be found on the Society's web site. 

Bob Reekie of the Wanlockhead mining museum has contributed a follow-up article to the review of the museum in the Autumn 2000 issue. Through dint of badgering the authorities, Bob has managed to secure further funding for the administration of the museum. Very proudly, he told me that someone in the Scottish Executive had described him as 'a pest'. The Society also has an excursion to Wanlockhead and Leadhills this summer. 

This is followed by a short piece by me. I had been doing some research in the Edinburgh Room of the Central Library, when I came across an extraordinary article on 'a new hypothesis of earthquakes'. It appeared in The Scots Magazine almost 250 years ago and just goes to show what progress has been made in our understanding in the last quarter of a millennium. It also goes to show how The Scots Magazine has changed over that time. 

I am also pleased to be able to publish another in the series of GEO-VINEYARDS (though this is the last that Cecilia has found, so please keep your eyes open when you are en vacances this year). In this issue's POET'S CORNER, there is a structural geological parody of the song 'Bonnie Dundee'. 

Lastly, there are a couple of reviews, one of the book Exploring geology on the Isle of Arran, contributed by Mike Tuke, and one of The Oxford Companion to the Earth, contributed by Norman Butcher. And, of course, we have our now regular ROCKSWORD PUZZLE by Angela Anderson. 

The Proceedings of the 166th session of the Society are published with this issue. 

The copy date for the next issue of THE EDINBURGH GEOLOGIST is Friday 31st August 2001. I await your unsolicited contributions, so come on... make my day!