Re-housing the Irish and British Marine Molluscs collection · Web viewPlease find below the final report for Heritage Grant– Re-housing the National Collection of Irish and British

Please find below the final report for Heritage Grant–Re-housing the National Collection of Irish and British Marine Molluscs. There are two files: the final report, in this file <molluscs_report.doc> and the catalogue appendix <mollusc_appendix.pdf>

Work on this project is now complete. Funding is now requested for remuneration for coverage of the project costs of archival supplies, for the agreed award—payment has already been recived for the consultancy portion of the award, for € 3220the remainder, for costs of archival supplies is € 2780.(The total amount of the award was € 6000).n.b. Funding for equipment and supplies were provided by UCD Zoology departmental research funds, and the National Museum of Ireland.

Please see the budget (below) for detailed costings.As these costs were incurred by the UCD Zoology Department in partnership with the NMINH, please make the cheque payable to UCD ZOOLOGY, care of Julia Sigwart. If you need any additional information, please contact me.

Yours sincerely,

Julia Sigwart

Re-housing the NMINH Irish and British marine molluscs collection

Re-housing the Irish and British Marine Molluscs collection in the National Museum of Ireland (Natural History Division)

Final Report

Prepared by: Julia D. Sigwart

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

- Bynes disease and glass disease - Impact for heritage - Value for natural heritage

Conclusions: Strategic Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Appendix – Catalogue of the collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Final Report 2


Introduction

Since project launch in March 2004, we have followed the re-housing procedure as

outlined in our initial proposal for funding. We can report a wealth of new information

regarding the condition and status of the Irish and British Marine Molluscs collection in the

National Museum of Ireland.

This project has resulted in the cataloguing and re-housing of over 3,300 museum

specimen ‘lots’, including more than 14,000 individual molluscs (see Figure 1). A lot is

defined by a group of objects that are environmentally related to each other – a group of

animals, all of the same species, collected together in the same time and place. In this

collection, a lot can include from one (1) to, in rare cases, more than 30 individual specimens.

Usually lots contain two to three individuals, intended to give a rounded biological example

of how the animal looks in nature. Larger lots tend to be correlated with smaller, more

abundant shells such as Rissoiid snails (tiny snails only a few millimetres in diameter).

The collection includes more than 1400 bivalve molluscs (clams, oysters, and allies) and

more than 1700 gastropod molluscs (snails and allies) as well as more than 200 examples of

other, more rare groups such as tusk-shells (see Box 1). These range in age from specimens

donated definitively in 1835 to the present day. It is possible that some elements in the

collection could be older than 170 years, as the original collections acquired by the Royal

Dublin Society did contain ‘seashells’ or mollusc specimens, but there does not appear to be

documentation for any of these specimens that had Irish or British origins.

The collection is now stable, in safer appropriate housing which will ensure the good

long term care of the whole collection. However, the continued investigation of this

collection has uncovered not only undiscovered hidden value in both historic and scientific

contexts, but has also helped define the path for future work that is needed to protect and

enhance this aspect of Irish heritage held in trust by the Natural History Division.

Final Report 3


Methods

Before work could proceed on the documentation and housing improvements planned for

this historical collection of marine molluscs, the first step was to move the entire collection

into the Natural History Division’s collections storage and research facility. In addition to

gallery space in Merrion Street, Dublin 2, where these specimens had been held since 1868,

the NMINH also holds a dedicated store facility in Beggars Bush (Dublin 4). The historical

cabinets that had previously housed this collection of Irish and British marine shells were

over-crowded and for any creating conditions that prevented safe access and use of the

collection. For practical reasons, a decision was taken to move the specimens in situ to their

new facility in Beggars Bush. Each drawer, packed full of boxed specimens, was

individually removed from the historical cabinetry, padded, wrapped, and packaged for the

move across town. A total of twenty-two (22) drawers of marine shells were packed and

moved in this way. The collection was then moved by private car for the short trip across

town. The drawers were laid out in the Beggars Bush facility and unpacked as work

progressed on assessment and documentation. This technique resulted in efficient and

effective work on the documentation procedure, with no superfluous handling, and

successfully resulted in moving a delicate collection with no damage whatsoever to the

specimens.

With the specimens in their new home, each old drawer was unpacked and processed on

an individual basis. The drawers were unwrapped, and packaging material removed and

discarded. The following four-step procedure was used for each specimen, as outlined in the

plan presented for this project.

1. Assess old housing / boxes

When application was first made to the Heritage Council to fund this project, we were

already aware of the poor state of the original housing of these objects. Housing directly

impacts not only the safe handling of objects, but also their conservation status as improper

materials can cause direct chemical environmental damage to shell collections. Historically,

specimens were kept in matchboxes; some objects were kept in highly acidic glass-topped

display boxes. These are not only a problem in terms of acid degradation of the objects, but

also in a context of safe handling—the inlaid glass tops had become brittle and often

Final Report 4


shattered with even minimal handling, leaving shards of glass mixed with shell. Smaller

specimens had been kept in traditional soda-glass vials stuffed with organic cotton wool.

This is again a two-fold problem, as soda glass degrades through ‘glass disease’ (see

Findings, below) and with a specimen chamber plugged by acidic, organic cotton; the object

environment is therefore damp (through ‘weeping’ of advanced stages of glass disease) and

in an acidic atmosphere. This is probably the worst possible environment for shell

specimens.

In more recent times, however, (circa mid-1990s) many specimens had been moved into

small zip-closure plastic bags. For larger specimens this is somewhat better in a context of

specimen environment than matchboxes, but smaller specimens were still contained in glass

vials within the plastic bags, which did not have much impact on the actual specimen

environment. The handling implications of these bags generally proved disastrous. Before

this project undertook to re-locate this collection, specimens were piled several layers deep in

the drawers, where the artefact bags were physically prone to slide over each other. We have

found several specimens that have been damaged because they were in an overcrowded

drawer of plastic baggies, and slipped behind the drawer and were crushed.

2. Survey status of historical labels

Many specimens include labels that indicate that many older parts of the collection were

studied and identified by important marine scientists such as John Gwyn Jeffreys, who was

an acquaintance of Charles Darwin (see Findings, below). Very often there will be a set of

two or more labels contained with a specimen lot: one with the scientific name and the

collecting locality, a second, separate label identifying the original collection, and sometimes

a third label with additional or redundant information. These labels are variously hand-

written or typed, throughout all ages of specimens. Typically the labels identifying a

collections (e.g. ‘Warren Collection’, see Appendix) are typed and were clearly created in

bulk sheets and then cut and distributed into all boxes belonging to a certain donor. Whether

this was done by the donors for their own purposes prior to accession, or if the labels directly

reflect the specimens’ incorporation into the larger Museum shell collection it is not possible

to determine.

Many smaller specimens were found to be stored on ‘presentation’ papers or cards,

mounted with animal glues on a label that included details of the species name and the donor.

Final Report 5


These specimens are often tiny, in the range of several millimetres in length. Interestingly,

the presentation labels often include information about the individual that had prepared them

for display (arranging, fixing, and labelling on card) and this was obviously considered a feat

of great skill, and with good reason for such tiny and delicate objects. Often for these very

tiny shells, a set of five or six individuals is laid in a series, all with identical orientation. The

arrangements are always geometrically symmetrical, so it is very easy to identify cases were

one or more has been removed or lost. At this point, we consider these cards, although not

archival by any means, to be the best means for continued storage. The specimens have often

dropped spontaneously from the cards due to the degradation of the animal glues used to affix

them, but due to the individual shells’ tiny size and their fragile nature, they seem to be much

safer when associated with the cards. No attempt has been made to re-affix them, nor have

we attempted to remove additional specimens from their cards. This may be reassessed in

future.

3. Survey object condition (check for degradation, breakage, etc.)

As mentioned above, the impacts of poor housing on individual specimen conditions

were already understood to be problematical when work on this project began. However,

object conditions were generally found to be in better condition than expected in this

collection, especially compared to known degradation (due to Bynes disease) in the other (i.e.

‘foreign’) shells. Specimens kept in soda-glass vials have been less prone to Bynes disease,

previously thought to be an extensive problem in this area of the collection, but often prone to

‘glass disease’ as the vials degrade. Many shells with fine projections were found to be

encumbered by the cotton wool used as padding or to plug vials. The cotton was often

discoloured to brown. Other specimens, particularly those fixed with animal glues (as

mentioned in step 2, above) seemed to have been affected by a fungal infestation, although

there was no apparent present live mould or fungal growth remaining. No effort has been

made to clean the residues of foreign material, either cotton wool or fungal residue. This

should be approached as a further project in the near future.

4. Transfer specimen to new archival housing and individual boxes

The entire collection has been removed from the gallery building in Merrion Street and

transferred to the Museum collections storage building in Beggars Bush. Each specimen was

Final Report 6


individually re-examined as described above, and transferred into new high-density press-

wood drawers in a dedicated mollusc collection room within the Beggars Bush building. The

collection has been given considerable room to expand—the footprint of drawer surface area

containing the collection has increased by twofold. This is both safer housing for specimens

in terms of environment and handling. Paired with item-level documentation for the

collection (see Appendix), the new state of housing allows for easy access of any particular

item in the collection, for the first time in over a century!

Findings

Glass Disease & Bynes Disease

Glass disease results directly from the chemical composition of soda glass (glass made

with low amount of lime in high heat), and the chemical reaction with normal atmosphere.

Glass itself is an amorphous matrix of silicate anions (negatively charged) and metal cations

(positively charged). The main ingredient is silica (SiO2), to which alkaline substances such

as potash (K2CO3) or soda ash (Na2CO3) are added as ‘fluxes’, together with lime (CaO) or

magnesium oxide (MgO) as stabilisers.

The first step, known as alkali depletion, occurs when soda glass is kept in a very humid

environment. Alkali ions contributed by the ‘flux’ materials migrate to the surface of the

glass matrix, where they are replaced with the hydrogen ions from water vapour (readily

available in this humid environment). The resulting alkali-deficient, hydrogen-rich ‘gel’

layer has a dull appearance. The process forms potassium and sodium hydroxides that react

with carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide from the air, and form hygroscopic salts. These

salts in turn appear as a layer of greasy, highly corrosive film on top of the depleted glass—

that is, it makes its own dirt. (In extreme cases, this can be followed by a second phase

leading to the fracturing and eventually total disintegration of the glass.)

The progress of the chemical reactions of glass disease with water vapour can cause

droplets form on the surface of the glass, a phenomenon known as ‘weeping’. When glass

affected by glass disease is removed into an environment with a relatively lower humidity,

the sodium and potassium carbonates form a white precipitate on the surface, which in the

case of mollusc collection can be confused in appearance with Bynes disease.

Final Report 7


Although there is genuine cases of extreme Bynes disease in other aspects of the NMI

molluscs collections, it appears that previously anticipated problems are less dangerous in

this collection. Glass disease has no permanently damaging effect on the molluscs within

glass vials effected by this chemical decay, and the problem of precipitating dirt and salts can

be corrected though re-housing into more stable glass vials.

Impact for heritage – history and people

Malacology, the study of molluscs, is also known as ‘conchology’, or the study of shells.

Like any discipline, it is built by the individual characters who have made up the background

of history as well as scientific achievement. Several extremely important individuals have

contributed historically to the NMINH collection of Irish and British mollusc shells. The

contributions of these individuals are very interesting both to the history of Ireland and to the

history of science from an international perspective. As a further aspect of this project, we

have begun the long and tangled process of investigating the history of these personalities.

Through their contributions to the permanent collections of the NMINH we can gain great

insights into the works and lives of these great men and women.

Amelia Elizabeth Mary Warren (1840-1932), known as Amy, lived in Ireland and was

an active conchologist. From historical labels, we can determine that some aspects of the

‘Warren Collection’ were donated by Amy Warren, and some by her brother Robert Warren.

Most historical labels refer only to the ‘Warren Collection’ although some clearly refer to A.

Warren or R. Warren. Collectively, the Warren siblings appear to have been one of the most

important donors to the NMINH Irish and British shell collection, having donated more than

400 specimen lots. Quite appropriately, there is a species of sea snail that is named

Odostomia warreni in Amy Warren’s honour.

A. Warren wrote articles on mollusc shells published in The Irish Naturalist, and is cited

in the Bibliography of Malacologists, but misleadingly referred to as a Briton. She would

have been writing and donating shells when living in Moyview, Co Sligo (near Ballina).

Some of A. Warren’s specimens are on exhibit in the Ulster Museum, Belfast.

We have been in correspondence with a descendant of the Warrens’; Ms. Anne Warren

of Australia, the grandniece of both Robert and Amy Warren, has been investigating the

scientific activities of her relatives. The only one of the Warren siblings to have children

emigrated to Australia and was Anne Warren’s great-grandfather. Robert Warren is rather

Final Report 8


better known than Amy Warren, due perhaps to historical gender bias, as well as his prolific

scientific writings. Robert Warren was co-author of the book 'Birds of Ireland' with Richard

J. Ussher published in 1900, as well as authoring a number of scientific articles on birds. R.

Warren also provided exhibits of birds and mammals for the NMINH, sent mainly from

Moyview in Co Sligo late 1800s to the early 1900s. We know also that the obituary of

Robert Warren, written after his death in November 1915, was written by A.R. Nichol,

another major contributor to this shell collection. Nichol worked for the museum and he

borrowed Robert Warren's letters from his sister, A. Warren (who lived at Ardnaree in

Monkston at that time) to help with the obituary. A. Warren passed away in 1932(?) and a

belated obituary was recorded in the Journal of Conchology in 1938. It is not clear where or

whether Robert or Amy Warrens’ respective papers may have been archived, although Anne

Warren is continuing to investigate.

There is a remarkable overlap in the Warren Collection and the collection of a fellow

Irishman, E. Waller. Many labels indicate that a shell was collected by Waller and later

donated to the NMINH by Warren, or vice versa. Clearly there was a great deal of

collaborative effort between the two parties for building their collections. Edward Waller

(1803-1873) is also known for his scholarly publications on Irish shells. His contribution to

the NMINH collection makes up a large fraction of the total holdings—the E. Waller

collection includes around 700 specimen lots. Waller would have been considerably older

than either Amy or Robert Warren, and may have acted as a teacher or mentor to one or both

of them, as well as a friend and colleague.

Another major female donor who is, like Amy Warren, known for her publications but

poorly understood as a historical figure. Mrs. E.M. Tatlow contributed around 200 lots of

shells, but we do not even know her first name. From the records preserved on the historical

labels of specimens she donated, there is no evidence of any collaboration between her and

other shell collectors. A short biography of her was published recently (1998) in The

Conchologists’ Newsletter by a British shell enthusiast, but the biography was as much as

anything a plea for information. Mrs. Tatlow remains a mystery.

Probably the most important person uncovered by the documentation efforts in

this collection is the Welshman, John Gwyn Jeffreys (1809-1885). He was author of

Final Report 9


the seminal work British Conchology and for long time was recognised as the leading

contemporary authority on Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean molluscs. There are

frequent notes in the collections of Warren and Waller to specimens collected by or

identified by ‘Mr. Jeffreys’. He wrote extensively on all aspects of molluscs and

shells, and is still recognised by scientists as one of the greatest every malacologists.

Jeffreys was scientific leader of the pioneering Porcupine cruises, the first

dredging cruises in British and Irish waters. The collections from the Porcupine

expeditions are distributed between the National Museum of Wales (Cardiff), the

Natural History Museum (London) and some material in the NMINH collections.

Jeffrey’s main collection is actually held in the United States National Museum

(Washington D.C., USA.), and includes material from some of his many collaborators.

Jeffreys was renknowed by his contemporaries for his remarkably complete

collection of shells from British and adjacent seas. Like the Warrens and E. Waller,

Jeffreys was the single authority most trusted by Charles Darwin himself to answer

any conchological question.

Charles Darwin quotes Jeffreys in The Descent of Man:

The Sub-kingdom of the Mollusca.—Throughout this great division of the

animal kingdom, as far as I can discover, secondary sexual characters…never occur.

Nor could they be expected in the three lowest classes, namely, in the Ascidians,

Polyzoa, and Brachiopods (constituting the Molluscoida of some authors), for most

of these animals are permanently affixed to a support or have their sexes united in

the same individual. In the Lamellibranchiata, or bivalve shells, hermaphroditism is

not rare. In the next higher classes of the Gasteropoda, or univalve shells, the sexes

are either united or separate. But in the latter case the males never possess special

organs for finding, securing, or charming the females, or for fighting with other

males. As I am informed by Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys, the sole external difference

between the sexes consists in the shell sometimes differing a little in form; for

instance, the shell of the male periwinkle (Littorina littorea) is narrower and has a

more elongated spire than that of the female. But differences of this nature, it may be

presumed, are directly connected with the act of reproduction, or with the

development of the ova.

Final Report 10


…Although with the Mollusca sexual selection does not seem to have come into

play; yet many univalve and bivalve shells, such as volutes, cones, scallops, &c., are

beautifully coloured and shaped. The colours do not appear in most cases to be of

any use as a protection; they are probably the direct result, as in the lowest classes,

of the nature of the tissues; the patterns and the sculpture of the shell depending on

its manner of growth. The amount of light seems to be influential to a certain extent;

for although, as repeatedly stated by Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys, the shells of some species

living at a profound depth are brightly coloured, yet we generally see the lower

surfaces, as well as the parts covered by the mantle, less highly-coloured than the

upper and exposed surfaces.

—C. Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. 2nd edn.

Value for natural heritage

Making natural history resources available—through documentation, dissemination, and

improving resource access—is critical to tackling issues underpinning the world biodiversity

crisis. This collection represents a scientific record through space and time of the distribution

of mollusc animals around Ireland and Britain.

We know that marine faunas, like this collection of molluscs, are sensitive environmental

indicators for impacts of pollution, habitat destruction, invasive species, and over-

exploitation. In particular, ecosystems in shallow seas (such as most of this material

represents) may be especially sensitive to the effects of global warming and consequent

increases in ocean temperature. However, studies of biodiversity often suffer from a lack of

reliable baseline data with which to compare our current findings.

There are enough specimens with good locality records in the NMINH collections for

resolution to be achieved in collating biodiversity data over the last 200 years. Recent studies

(2000) have found that recent museum collections independently recover 80 per cent of

species found in intensive nearshore surveys. Additional work by many ecologists indicates

that nearshore macroinvertebrates such as molluscs are highly sensitive to changes in their

marine environments. Specimen databases like NMINH allow us to analyse in detail patterns

of biodiversity in space and time, in response to changing conditions.

Museum collections are physical databases of our planet's biota. In particular the

NMINH proves to be an excellent, detailed, and ever-growing cache of data about extant

Final Report 11


faunal diversity in Ireland continuously from 200 years ago right up until the present day.

These shell specimens combined with additional material with soft tissues preserved in spirit,

preserve a history of molluscan distribution in time and space around the shores of Ireland.

Most importantly for spirit material, we know that a BioMAR project surveyed 900 nearshore

sites around the Irish coast (including 200 shore sites), gathering specimens and measuring

habitat details for all marine fauna, with field work completed in autumn 1996, and has

lodged several thousand additional specimens in NMINH, representing a comprehensive

contemporary survey of the Irish coast.

Mapping this wealth of information across space and time in Irish history can eventually

give us a clear picture not only of where we stand to-day with marine Irish molluscan

biodiversity, but determine what changes have been affected by fisheries, urban development,

and climate change. Combining species accounts and locality data from museum specimens,

published records, and modern survey techniques, we will assess the patterns of Irish

molluscan diversity in space and time, with direct comparison to changes in environmental

impact.

Final Report 12


Conclusions: Strategic Plan

This project marks a great step forward in improving the collections management of a

historically and scientifically important Irish collection. The new housing standards set a

precedent for appropriate archival boxes and lucid, permanent labelling system to be used on

all future incoming material, as well as a model to apply to the curation of other aspects of

the NMINH collections.

As ever, work remains to be done. Further research is needed to understand the

historical implications of many of the persons involved in the assembly of this collection.

Further work is also needed to address the conservation of specimens that show evidence of

negative impacts from environmental factors. Glass disease, delicate shells covered in cotton

wool, and possible past fungal damage need to be corrected. However, damage will no

longer be exacerbated by continuing exposure to inappropriate, acidic environments. For

now, the condition of these objects appears to be stable.

A focus for future work should be the continued documentation of other associated

aspects of this collection. The NMINH collection of Irish and British shells is a key section

of the dry invertebrates collection; however, the current assessment of it is necessarily

incomplete. Of particular interest are:

spirit material—whole mollusc animals preserved in alcohol

other marine invertebrates

Alcohol-preserved material is arguably of much greater scientific importance than

museum collections of dry shells. Preservation of the whole animal paves the way for

potential DNA analysis, as well as simply examining the anatomy of the bodies of these

animals with no bones. These kinds of museum objects are essential to scientific studies such

as examining evolutionary relationships between groups of animals, as well as research

underpinning important fields such as medicine and biochemistry. Shells especially, as

things of beauty, inspire many interests beyond the scientific. It is therefore interesting from

a heritage point-of-view to note that we know that all specimens preserved in alcohol were

intentionally kept for scientific motives. We can understand a bit more about the minds of

the people behind the collections.

Many of the individuals who are linked to the history of the NMINH collection of Irish

and British shells were not taxonomically restrained to an interest in molluscs. They would

Final Report 13


have been driven by a passion for the natural world, and probably the sea in particular. We

have as yet no direct evidence through documentation, but we can expect that the same

personalities will be found as contributors to other similar collections in the NMINH.

Echinoderms (sea stars, sea urchins, etc.), sponges, and other forms of marine life would have

figured prominently in their interests.

The way forward for this collection is to improve its association with other closely

associated aspects of the NMINH holdings. The methods set forth here and implemented

with the support of the Heritage Council should be further applied to other, equally important

collections of marine zoological specimens, and extended to address best practise for spirit-

preserved components.

Final Report 14


Box 1. Groups of Molluscs in the NMI Collection of Irish and British shells

Gastropods (class Gastropoda ) a group of animals that travel on a single, muscular foot and often secrete a one-piece shell for protection. live in a single shell (or no shell, in the case of slugs) that is usually asymmetrical coiled. Snails, slugs, limpets and abalones are all gastropods. Irish gastropods range from only a few milimetres across to the large whelks that can be 15 cm long.

Bivalves (class Bivalvia ) a shellfish group characterised by two hinged shells; a bilaterally symmetrical two-part external shell that completely encloses the body (including clams, oysters, and mussels). Irish bivalves range from only a few milimetres across to the giant scallop at 15 cm.

Chitons (class Polyplacophora ) a small class of primitive, elongated, bilaterally symmetrical marine molluscs with eight overlapping calcareous plates surrounded by a fleshy girdle or mantle. Irish species grow from 10 to 30 mm long.

Tusk-shells (class Scaphopoda ) a small class of bilaterally symmetrical marine molluscs comprising the tusk shells or scaphopods, characterised by a tapering tubular shell open at each end and a foot pointed like a spade for burrowing and sensory tentacles which protrude from the wide end of the shell. Irish species grow from to 15 mm long.

Final Report 15


Figure 1. A. Representation of biological groups in the NMI collection of Irish and British marine molluscs. B. Representation of molluscan biological groups worldwide, in species numbers.

Final Report 16

gastropods57%

bivalves40%

chitons2%

scaphopods1%

gastropods75%

bivalves20%

chitons2%

scaphopods3%

A.

B.

Documents

Re-housing the Irish and British Marine Molluscs collection · Web viewPlease find below the final report for Heritage Grant– Re-housing the National Collection of Irish and British