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 € 3220
the 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
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Re-housing the NMINH Irish and British marine molluscs collection
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.
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Re-housing the NMINH Irish and British marine molluscs collection
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
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Re-housing the NMINH Irish and British marine molluscs collection
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 handwritten 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.
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Re-housing the NMINH Irish and British marine molluscs collection
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
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Re-housing the NMINH Irish and British marine molluscs collection
individually re-examined as described above, and transferred into new high-density presswood 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.
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Re-housing the NMINH Irish and British marine molluscs collection
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
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Re-housing the NMINH Irish and British marine molluscs collection
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
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Re-housing the NMINH Irish and British marine molluscs collection
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.
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Re-housing the NMINH Irish and British marine molluscs collection
…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 overexploitation.
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
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Re-housing the NMINH Irish and British marine molluscs collection
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.
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Re-housing the NMINH Irish and British marine molluscs collection
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
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Re-housing the NMINH Irish and British marine molluscs collection
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 spiritpreserved components.
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Re-housing the NMINH Irish and British marine molluscs collection
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.
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Re-housing the NMINH Irish and British marine molluscs collection
scaphopods
1%
A.
chitons
2%
bivalves
40%
gastropods
57%
scaphopods
3%
chitons
2%
B.
bivalves
20%
gastropods
75%
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.
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