Correcting the Record on Cunnington's Rock Samples and Slides

Ah, the latest dispatch from the front lines of Stonehenge petrology: Robert Ixer's and Richard Bevins's catalogue of William Cunnington's Victorian-era thin sections and hand specimens, now gracing Academia.edu like a long-lost gem from Devizes. For those not in the weeds, this is a meticulous archive of 33 slides and their parent rocks from Cunnington's haul of 460 "foreign rock" fragments, scooped up between 1878 and 1881 from turf scrapes, wagon ruts, barrows, and even a few cheeky digs inside the circle itself. Sarsens? Wisely binned, as we're chasing the bluestones' secrets here. As inevitable as the Ancient Mariner waylaying yet another wedding guest with his watery woes, Brian John has slunk back to cast his jaundiced eye over the catalogue. John gets this bit spot-on in his review, bless him—it's a tidy summary of the collection's scope and its unbiased charm as a snapshot of surface debitage. Credit where due: he even flags the pyrite/marcasite oddity (unanalysed, alas) and the general lithological lineup, which does indeed mirror other collections in its "correct" proportions. One might almost think he's read the thing.

But then, inevitably, Brian John lurches into his familiar refrain, that weary old dirge about the "limited range of rock types" being a "tired old point" peddled by Ixer and Bevins to prop up their human-transport heresy. Oh, Brian—it's like watching a man clutch at straws in a gale, insisting the wind's just a myth because he hasn't dug up every sodden acre of Salisbury Plain. Yes, the catalogue quotes it proudly: all major groups (spotted dolerites, Rhyolite C, Andesite A, and the rest) tally up nicely, debunking the notion of "random glacial erratics" with a polite but firm wave of obsolete nomenclature. John concedes the proportions are "comparable," yet sneers that the duo have "over and again demonstrated... outliers and exceptions" in their own work, proving "multiple provenances." How deliciously selective! Those "outliers"—like the rare Dacite Group D in S57, now elevated to genuine bluestone status via Aubrey Hole finds, or the Greensand in S61—are precisely what the catalogue folds in with scholarly grace, not the chaotic scatter John dreams of for his ice-age fantasy. And his parting shot? That 50% of the monument's turf remains unexcavated, rendering all claims "very unwise"? Pure vapour—hand-wringing from a chap whose glacial hobbyhorse has been lamed by a generation of sediment cores, till fabrics, and isotopic dead-ends. It's not unwise; it's science, Brian. Do try keeping up.

Take the seven rhyolitic tuffs, all neatly slotted into Rhyolite Group C from Craig Rhos-y-felin, complete with their Jovian, Snowflake, and Zebra textures. John, ever the contrarian, brands this "wishful thinking rather than science," scoffing that Harrison et al. (1979) saw a "range" the authors blithely ignore. "No way that this claim can be accepted," he thunders. How droll—like a flat-Earther mocking satellite photos because they don't show the ice wall. The catalogue doesn't ignore Harrison; it updates him, with tight petrography (titanite clusters, chlorite infills, the lot) tying every variant back to Rhos-y-felin's outcrop. John's "pretence" jibe? That's the projection talking, a last gasp from a theory as threadbare as his patience for peer review. Fair play, though: he does nod to the appendices' "useful photos" and full descriptions—small mercies in the bile.

Then there's Table 1, that paragon of evolutionary nomenclature, tracing Cunnington's "Diabase" through Teall's ophitic musings to modern precision. John spies "clear evidence of 'forcing' lithologically different samples into predetermined groups," with some appendices showing "reasonable 'fits'" and others... well, not so much. Evidence? One might ask for a microscope, but no—it's all in the eye of the glacial beholder. Borderline calls like S74 ("volcanic with sub-planar texture," covering "a multitude of sins") or S57's anomalous Dacite D get flagged transparently as "ODD" or provisional, with calls for re-sectioning in the "Further Work" bit. No forcing here, just rigour; John's conspiracy of categories crumbles under its own weight. He scores a point on S52's heft (over 74g, cobble or chip?), rightly noting the orthostat ambiguity the authors "traditionally ignore." Touché—though the catalogue matches slides to specimens with forensic care, including fresh orthostat firsts like Stones 32c and 61a. Progress, Brian; it's unbecoming to sulk.

The Lower Palaeozoic sandstones fare better in his crosshairs: S1's hefty lump (500g, five pieces) from Barrow 41 (or 42—labelling's a muddle, as admitted), a mile off, and S69's broad-brush tag encompassing "many thousands of different lithologies." Spot-on reportage, and a reminder of these as the heavy hitters among non-dolerites (cf. that 8.5kg Roman shaft beast). But John's "S74... multitude of sins" and Greensand "inconvenien[ces]"? Derisory twaddle—these are the very anomalies that enrich the tale, not torpedo it, with S61's glauconite and foraminifera screaming local Cretaceous, not Welsh wanderlust.

And lo, the Altar Stone in Appendix 6—S45's dusky yellow, carbonate-cemented glory, with its limonite stains, stylolites, and that tantalising garnet in the heavy minerals. John quotes the microscopical description verbatim (muscovite laths, twinned plagioclase, the works), and even flags the "garnet problem" and Wilts 277's murky slide origins via his blogs. Hats off: this is John at his best, distilling the specialist stuff without the snark, nodding to the Scottish provenance buzz (Clarke et al., 2024) and prior harmonies (Ixer & Turner, 2006, et al.). It's a crumb he earns, linking micaceous debitage to Cunnington's own hunch.

In the end, John's review is a curate's egg: the shell's cracked with envy, but the yolk—those factual nuggets—nourishes. Yet it's vinegar strokes all the way down, a lonely obsession flogging a discredited glacial nag long after the field's moved on to quarries and causeways. Ixer and Bevins don't "fail to see the obvious"—they chase it with data, not daydreams. Multiple provenances? Aye, but sacred Welsh ones, not a slurry of ice-rafted odds and sods. The exceptions scream intentional transport, not random dump; John's "obvious conclusion" is the mirage he mistakes for an oasis. Welcome addition indeed—this catalogue polishes another facet of Stonehenge's human story, outliers and all. Brian, old chap, time to thaw that theory out for good.