Lyell's Loess Legion; aka the Britz Brigade, the Mergel Mob

1833- the first edition of Principles of Geology..  Lyell lists the people he has had loess discussions with.. he acknowledged Leonhard, Bronn, Boue, Voltz, Steininger, Merian, Rozet, Hibbert.  These were the initial members of Lyell's Loess Legion. In later editions of PoG  Noeggerath, von Meyer & Horner. There were eventually eleven members- just enough for a cricket team. Some of these people are well known and have been incorporated into the loess story, but some have been neglected- we need more efforts to make sure that all are fully recognised. Some, like Steininger for example, were involved in the very early days of loess, the time of proto-loess, the time before loess was loess. Steininger wrote of 'britz'  one of the abandoned synonyms.. another was mergel; back in the days of the Britz Brigade, the Mergel Mob... There is a problem with Britz; Steininger was published in Old German text, in which tz is a joint letter. Some people write Briz. I favour Britz.. even Leonhard was confused.

this is Noeggerath; friend of Leonard Horner

and this is Ami Boue who was at Edinburgh University with Horner . Ami Boue (1794-1881) educated at the University of Edinburgh 1814-1817; Wollaston Medal winner 1847. According to Rozycki (1991,p.12) Boue (1836? 1838?) established the presence of loess in the drainage basin of the lower and middle Danube. Hibbert (in 1832) wrote "The latest tertiary deposit which appears to have characterised the valley from Mayence to Basle has been properly considered by M. Boue as the product of a great fresh water sea that filled the whole basin of the Upper Rhine. It has been described under various names, of which the one most adopted is Loess.