Imagine, then, feeling and hearing rocks in the making. That is what happened to Eileen Holttum on a walking and camping trip in the Highlands and in this issue, she gives us a first hand account of the Shiel Bridge earthquake of 3rd May this year.
Peter Dryburgh has written to me about another kind of geology in the making. He tells readers of the synthetic production of minerals for use in technological applications. I hadnít realised that we could manufacture quite so many otherwise naturally-occurring substances. This and another letter are at the end of the issue.

Peter has also given me this issueís main article, a biography of the mineralogist and geologist, Matthew Heddle. The story of how Peter set of in quest of Heddleís history is almost as fascinating as the history itself. He takes us through a tale of violence by Jacobites and Hanoverians, by teachers at the Edinburgh Academy, and in the pursuit of mineral extraction.

I was inundated with correspondence over the Song of the Moine Thrust. This takes us far beyond another Poetry Corner and rather into a fascinating detective story. My thanks to all who have contributed and in particular to Anne Burgess and Dorothy Forrester for their translations and to Sinclair Ross, who has brought it all together.

I sometimes worry that we have too many historical articles but, despite that, I am pleased to say that we have another contribution by Mike Taylor, this time on the Robert Chambers, whose bicentenary is celebrated this year along with that of Hugh Miller. The two men have a good deal in common. Chambers too held down a day-job in publishing but was most passionate in the field of geology and evolution.

But this issue is not totally dominated by  nineteenth and twentieth century geologists. Dan Evans, Colin Graham and Heather Stewart bring us up to date with an article on the Millennium Atlas, published this year. This is a major modern work on thegeology of the central and northern North Sea. I doubt that many of you will consider buying an individual copy: it is expected to weigh about 9 kilograms! But there will be a copy in the library at Murchison House and Fellows may look at it there.

Another twenty-first century article is that by Diane Mitchell and me on the new Geological Society web site. There may be some of you who have not looked at it yet, but the average number of visits to the site is around a thousand per month, so  someone must be looking at it! If you have not browsed there, you should do so. If you have no computer of your own or are not connected to the Internet, take our advice and get yourself and a computerate friend down to an Internet Café.

In the regular series of articles, this issueís Whatís in a Name? comes from Allen Fraser who tells us about Norn names used in Shetland. This was originally prompted by the red rocks article in last autumnís issue. Allen had sent it in as a letter for the Spring issue, but I persuaded him to expand it into a full article and here it is.

This issueís Geo-vineyards is based on a further label sent to me by Cliff Porteous. The original is magnificent and readers are advised to wait until this issue comes to the web site and look at it there for a full-colour version.

Lastly, I have another Rocksword Puzzle by Angela Anderson. Angela tells me she has recently obtained a new geological dictionary and she believes that future puzzles will benefit from it!

On the subject of puzzles, I am pleased to be able to tell you that there were two all-correct solutions to the Silver Anniversary Competition that appeared in the Spring 2002 issue. The winner, whose name was drawn out of the hat by the President, is David Ross. David will receive a copy of Alex Livingstonís Minerals of Scotland.

I have been thinking about how I introduced this editorial. The rising sea destroyed the sand castle that we had built. But only on the surface: our digging is, I suppose, a form of bioturbation. Future geologists will surely wonder at the strange creatures that must have lived on beaches during one interglacial period in the middle of the Cenozoic Ice Age.