GEOLOGICAL AND GEOPHYSICAL STUDIES DURING THE WAR ON BEHALF OF THE ASSOCIATED COLLIERIES OF THE NETHERLANDS

Abstract

FOLLOWING the outbreak of war, visits by the advanced students of geology of Dutch universities to foreign countries in order to acquire the necessary, field training in mountainous country, as was the practice in peace-time, were no longer possible. Moreover a considerable number of young geologists just leaving the universities and the Delft Technical College, or on leave from abroad, were caught by the War and cut off from their field of activity. In order to ease this position, an organisation was created by the Associated Collieries of the Netherlands, in which association the Government collieries played a predominant part, to employ some forty of these young men in various fields of geological science, with the sole object of promoting, in the widest sense, scientific research for the collieries. The former Inspector General of the Mines, the well-known geologist, Mr. van Waterschoot van der Gracht, was the chief of this organisation until his death in August 1943, when he was succeeded by the present writer. The assistance of Prof. Jongmans, the distinguished phytopalseontologist and authority on carboniferous stratigraphy, director of the Geological Bureau of the South-Limburg Mining District, and of Dr. Tesch, director of the Department of the Geological Survey responsible for the Geological Map of the Netherlands, helped the organisation from its inception.