Casgliadau ac Ymchwil

Mae nifer o eitemau diddorol wedi cyrraedd y casgliadau diwydiant a thrafnidiaeth eto’r mis hwn. Yn y ffotograff isod, a dynnwyd ar 22 Gorffennaf 1926, gwelwn griw o 29 chwarelwr llechi. Mae’r lleoliad yn anhysbys ond mwy na thebyg taw yn chwarel Dinorwig neu’r Penrhyn y tynnwyd y llun. Os allwch chi helpu i leoli’r ffotograff, neu’n adnabod rhywrai o’r dynion, cysylltwch â ni.

Dyluniwyd a chynhyrchwyd y tri darn cerameg yma gan yr artist George Thompson, crochenydd yn byw yn Amlwch, Ynys Môn. Mwynfeydd copr mynydd Paris yw’r ysbrydoliaeth.

Plac cerameg gyda slip ocr coch a gwydriad copr.

Pot cerameg a stand mewn clai crank pinc gyda gwydriad graffit a copr.

Powlen gerameg gyda slip graffit, ocr coch ac ocr oren.

Yn y ffotograff isod gwelwn weddillion tŷ injan troslath a simdde ym mwynglawdd copr Parys, Ynys Môn, 1964. 

Gwnaed y model hwn o fwynglawdd copr mynydd Parys oddeutu 1967, ac mae bellach yn rhan o gasgliadau Amgueddfa Cymru.

Mae’r fedal hon yn coffau torri’r dywarchen gyntaf yn Noc y Brenin, Abertawe. Ar 20 Gorffennaf 1904 cyrhaeddodd y cwch pleser Brenhinol, Victoria & Albert, Fae Abertawe. Wedi cyrraedd Doc Tywysog Cymru, esgynnodd y Brenin Edward VII a’r Frenhines Alexandre a dewiswyd yr enw Doc y Brenin er anrhydedd iddo. Wedi’r seremoni, teithiodd y Brenin na’r Frenhines drwy strydoedd Abertawe mewn cerbyd agored. Agorwyd y Doc yn swyddogol ar 20 Tachwedd 1909, ac mae’n dal i gael ei ddefnyddio heddiw. Yn 72 erw i gyd, dyma brif ddoc Harbwr Abertawe.

Ffotograff yn dangos tagfa longau (hwyliau a stêm) yn Noc y Brenin, oddeutu 1910. Trafferthion traffig yn y dyddiau cynnar.

Golygfa arall o Ddoc y Brenin. Tynnwyd y llun gan y ffotograffydd  John Eurof Martin ac mae’n dyddi o ganol yr 20fed Ganrif.

Mark Etheridge
Curator: Industry & Transport
Follow us on Twitter - @IndustryACNMW

A week has passed during which the rains slowly abated (at least for part of each day). Dryer vegetation means that our nets (and ourselves) don’t rapidly become water-sodden and we can catch insects more easily and effectively. Whenever the weather has allowed, we have been climbing through the forest searching for flies and enjoying a good measure of success in our quest.

Many of the species we have been catching belong in genera with which we have little familiarity; being rare and little-known, even to specialists such as ourselves. Finds such as these make all the hard slogging up precipitous slopes, cutting through dense vegetation, deep sucking mud and scratches and bites from a myriad of thorny plants and man-eating insects worthwhile! I guess you have to be a shade unhinged to enjoy this sort of thing. . . or a field entomologist perhaps?

Our time at Estación Científica San Francisco is now drawing to a close and tonight we have been sorting and labelling our samples carefully to ensure they are ready for shipment back to our bases in Cardiff and Manaus. Proper field curation of collected specimens is a vital part of expeditions such as ours, ensuring that all data (where/when an insect was captured, what it’s habitat was and how it was behaving etc. etc.) is properly cross-referenced with the actual samples. Were the samples to become detached from their data they would be rendered useless, of mere cosmetic interest.

To read more about Adrian's travels, go to our Natural History blog page

We have made it to the Estación Científica San Francisco in Podocarpus National Park, Loja Province. Well, we made it but one of our bags didn’t, apparently having been left behind in Quito. We are hopeful that it will arrive tomorrow in Loja and we can arrange for a taxi to bring it the hour or so’s drive to the Estación. Meanwhile we are getting to know our new home for the next week.

The Estación is perched on the side of a narrow ravine in dense forest through which flows the Rio San Fransisco. All our routes into the forest start with a spectacular crossing of the river using a wire cradle suspended from a rope running through pulleys at either end high over the water. Progress is made by pulling hand over hand on the opposing rope until the other side is reached. Once over, the ground is very steep and densely forested. Our intial forrays into the near reaches of this wilderness indicate a spectacularly diverse fly fauna. . . and that is what we are here for. We have set our Malaise traps but the incessant rain is making other fieldwork difficult so we will have to wait for better weather to get further afield and explore more.

You can read more about Adrian's travels on our blog page

Having completed our work at Yanayacu we have moved further down the eastern slopes of the Andes to the town of Tena in Napo Province. Here at only 500m above sea level it is much hotter than in the mountains - a truly tropical climate. The town is placed on the last slight hills before the Andes sweep down and merge onto the flatlands of the Amazon Basin. West of here, the rivers are fast and furious having dropped 3000m or more in just 50km through the mountains whereas to the east they become sluggish and it will take another 3000km for them to drop the remaining 500m to the sea.

Our visit to Tena is necessary to complete administrative formalities and to obtain permits allowing us to move the specimens we have collected between different provinces within Ecuador. After three visits to the Ministry of Environment, numerous phone calls, support from a well-connected colleague at the newly established university in Tena and from colleagues in Quito we are still waiting for a positive outcome!

Josenir and I have to move on to our next study site in Loja Province and we have no chance or getting the permits through in time. Fortunately, Eduardo has to remain in the town to deliver a 3-day entomology course to the students at the university. The hope is that he can complete the formalities and bring our specimens with him when he moves back to Quito next week and we can take them from him when we pass through Quito on our way out of the country. Meanwhile Josy and I have a plane to catch….

Find out more about what Adrian has been up to by reading his past blogs.

Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales team up with British Institute for Geological Conservation for the 2015 RHS Show

This year, for the first time Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales had its own marquee at the Cardiff Royal Horticultural Society Show. The Museum has been represented at the show for several years, enabling us to share with the public many of our hidden treasures from the museum’s collections. Our theme, Tropical Plants: bringing the tropics back to Wales, provided an excellent introduction to the Museum’s Botany collections. Visitors marvelled at the coco-de-mer, the world’s largest seed (native to the Seychelles). Curator, Heather Pardoe, introduced show-goers to a selection of sumptuous eighteenth-century botanical illustrations, rarely on show to the public, originally painted in tropical countries including Australia, India, America and Java.

The highlight for many was the opportunity to hunt for fossils with experts from the Museum, led by Ben Evans (BIGC) and Head of Botany Chris Cleal. Young and old alike were thrilled to split rocks and discover Carboniferous plant fossils, dating back 300 million years. This year the fossil hunt was accompanied by a prehistoric reconstruction, created using tree ferns, horsetails and an amazing diversity of mosses. The Carboniferous garden was home for the weekend to our incredible Arthur the Arthropleura (a giant millipede from the Carboniferous period), another show stopper.  Visitors could also see exotic insects, accidentally imported into Britain,  held in the Museum’s Entomology collections, and learn about both the OPAL and the Spring Bulb projects.  Over the three days of the show more than 5,000 people visited the Museum’s marquee, out of a record-breaking 24,000 visitors to the show.

We’d like to thank Waitrose Pontprennau, PJS Flowers and Miller Argent for supporting and sponsoring our activities and displays this year.

To find out more about the museum’s presence at the RHS show, why not read our Storify story