Wayfaring with fossils.

I have been writing a piece this weekend for younger readers. It's about how geology is everywhere, and I'll probably post it here as well, at some stage, but in the end, I decided not to discuss fossils, but to refer them to this blog, because, as a quick click on the fossils tag below will reveal, fossils are one of my longest-lasting temporary obsessions in and among these pages.

In particular, I decided to refer them to my tale of smuggling a fossil out of Britain. There was no crime in this, but for good and valid scientific reasons, I needed to hoodwink an idiot. When I looked, though, I realised that I have never told that story here, nor is it in my Australian Backyard Earth Scientist.

It is, however, in my Mistaken for Granite, and now, finally, it's here.

Ammonite, Morocco.

Fossils were once anything that was found buried, including archaeological material, and this confusion lives on in some quarters, as this true tale will reveal.

In 1993, I was working for the Australian Museum as an educator, but I had been seconded to an aid project in the Pacific (training science teachers), and I brought home a pickled Giant African Land Snail.

Knowing these snails ought to be a dubious import into Oz, I declared it, outlined the preservation methods used to ensure that it was sincerely dead, explained that it was destined to reside in the Australian Museum, and I was told “You know more about this than I do. Take it.”

Clearly, I had pre-empted the argument phase, but equally clearly, I act honestly. That had to change in late April that same year, when I was forced to get an export safely out of Britain.

A colleague at the museum, knowing I would be in Edinburgh, had asked me to courier home a type specimen of a Devonian fish that he had lodged with the Royal Museums of Scotland in Edinburgh some years earlier.

I agreed, took the right letters to effect the loan, collected the fossil in bubble wrap and cardboard and set off, with the appropriate documents saying what it was, and that it was a proper and legitimate loan.

All was well until I arrived at Heathrow on my way out. As I had all the papers, and worried that there might be questions if I did not show what I had, I declared the fish. The customs officer spoke impeccable English but let us just say that he was clearly of non-British parentage and culture. “You can’t take that,” he said.

I asked why not. “You don’t have the appropriate EU documentation, and you are stealing our heritage.” Now I might have said, “Mate, this is a Scottish fish, I’m a genetic Scot, and it’s being loaned by a Scottish museum to a Scot in Australia—and he found it in the first place—and you're no Scot. So just whose heritage are we talking about?”

I didn’t, because that is not my way. I could see the surreal aspect, but I was diplomatic. It availed me nothing. He still demanded that I surrender the object as yet uninspected, which lay in my carry-on bag. I argued, and explained that it was one of a kind. It was a type specimen, and special to science. He produced an alphabetical list of sciences on a sheet of paper. “Is this archaeology or zoology?”

“Neither,” I said. “It comes under palaeontology.”

He bristled, sensing that I was being smart or worse, and scrutinised his sheet of paper. Because I’m good at reading upside-down, I pointed to the word he was seeking. “It means ‘study of fossils’,” I said.

I had, however, recognised that this gentleman, for all that he was polite, well-informed on paperwork and probably well-meaning, was either untrained or as thick as two bricks—or both. I concluded that this was not somebody who could be trusted to look after a type specimen and treat it with due care.

A type specimen is very special to scientists: it is the original specimen from which a name was given. My colleague had found this fossil, described it and named it, but now it needed some further study, which is why he was borrowing it.

I had, in the same bag, a piece of partly metamorphosed shale from Wales, wrapped in newspaper, so as I was arguing, I brought that to the top of the bag. It was, after all, of no real value to me. Let me emphasise that I did not, at any time, imply that this was the fossil because I am, after all, a totally honest man. I spoke no lie. I cannot reasonably be held to account for the wild conclusions made by the Great Unwashed of Britain.

His hand darted out, seized the package, and tipped the stone out of the protective wrapping so it landed with a bang onto the counter (confirming my assessment of him), turned it over, dug at it with a grubby thumbnail (further confirmation), then handed it back. “I suppose you can take it,” he told me, somewhat reluctantly.

I thanked him nicely, wrapped the Welsh shale again, placed it protectively over the fossil fish in its bubble wrap, and walked off.

I said nothing until I was home, when I told an edited version of this story in a British weekly, New Scientist, as part of a discussion on rare fossils being sent through the mail, the risks they were put under, and the need to have customs officers examine them. The officers needed to be educated first, I said.

My colleague examined the fossil fish as necessary, and it was later couriered safely back to Edinburgh, though not by me. I was lying low, and having outed myself, I have avoided Heathrow ever since, because they may still be waiting for me.