Red Belemnite Fossil at Boston Public Library's Abbey Room

 Yesterday I introduced the Boston's Central Public Library building (McKim) and the ammonoid fossils found there. Today I will introduce another type of fossil I have not seen in the red Verona marble before.

On the second floor of the McKim Building is the Abbey Room (originally the Book Delivery Room where books were picked up by patrons). The walls of the room have fifteen panels depicting Sir Galahad's Quest for the Holy Grail painted by Edwin Austin Abbey (1852-1911). He used Alfred, Lord  Tennyson's story Idylls of the King for the basis of these paintings. The checkerboard pattern of tiles on the floor are white Istrian limestone and red Verona marble (limestone aka Rosso Verona).

While looking at the flooring tiles I spotted the familiar shape of a belemnite (part of extinct squid-like cephalopod). This creature existed in the Upper Jurassic Period (Oxfordian Stage). Tile was probably quarried from the Rosso Ammonitico Formation of Verona Province of Venetia Region of Italy.

Red Ammonoid Fossils at Central Boston Public Library

The biggest surprise for me when I visited Boston last week was the Boston Public Library's McKim Building. It is an artistic and geological wonder. So many ammonite fossils embedded in the marble floor tiles. The complex is known as the Central Library in Copley Square of Boston, Massachusetts, USA. The City of Boston chartered their public library system in 1848. Decades later having outgrown previous locations they awarded a contract in 1887 to the firm of McKim, Mead, and White to build what is now known as the McKim Building. The cornerstone was placed in 1888 in which Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in his dedication poem, "This palace is the people's own" (origin of it's later name "Palace of the People"). The building completed in 1895 at cost of 2.2 million dollars. Charles Follen McKim (1847-1909) was the chief architect for this building.

On the second floor of the McKim Building is the Abbey Room (originally the Book Delivery Room where books were picked up by patrons). The walls of the room have fifteen panels depicting Sir Galahad's Quest for the Holy Grail painted by Edwin Austin Abbey (1852-1911). He used Alfred, Lord  Tennyson's story Idylls of the King for the basis of these paintings. The checkerboard pattern of tiles on the floor are white Istrian limestone and red Verona marble (limestone aka Rosso Verona). Some of these reddish-pink tiles contain coiled ammonoids similar to what I found in Italy at Rome's St. Ignazio Church and Vatican City's St. Peter's Basilica.

Elwell, Newton W. "Delivery room." Photograph. Boston, Mass.: Geo. H. Polley & Co., 1896. Digital Commonwealth, https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/6h440w43c (accessed August 21, 2022).

 

 

 

It is amazing that these tiles have been in place for over 100 years. These ammonoids date to the Upper Jurassic Period of the Rosso Ammonitico Formation, Oxfordian Stage, Verona Province, Venetia Region of Italy.

Further reading:

https://quarriesandbeyond.org/states/ia/ia-structures.htm

https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:ms35tx11f

https://slownomads.phoosh.net/fossil-hunting-in-verona/

 https://www.marmirossi.com/en/news/focus-materials/the-historical-bond-between-marble-and-verona

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jsjgeology/14802172801 

The Ammonite Church?

On a recent visit to Boston, Massachusetts USA, a church visible from the street had ammonite pattern at the top of the building. I took some pictures of the pediment. The church is The Cathedral Church of St. Paul and it turns out the pattern is of a nautilus. 

 

It appears to have been inspired by Boston's own Oliver Wendell Holmes 1858 poem "The Chambered Nautilus".

 

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,—
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,—
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year’s dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathèd horn!
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:—

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea! 

 

Above is a picture of an actual chambered nautilus (Nautilus pompilius) found at Schouten Island Tasmania. It was on display in August 2022 at the Harvard Museum of Natural History at Cambridge Massachusetts USA (MCZ 184602). Another great place to visit when in the Boston area.

 

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) was also famous for the 1830 poem "Old Ironsides" which is about U.S.S. Constitution. A definite visit when in Boston to see the U.S. Navy's oldest active ship.

Another picture of U.S.S. Constitution of it's hull with seaweed floating near by.