JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post   The Unintentional Absurd series

I was checking out what turned out to be a significant article on solitons (“Called “On Waves”) by Lord Rayleigh in the April, 1876 issue of the Philosophical Magazine when I bumped into a neighboring article¹ from the month before with this beautiful found-Abstract art illustration. It is headed with this gorgeous title, “On the Serpentinite² of the Lizard…”, and written by T.H. Rowney, who addressed its unusual appearance, citing its “organic appearance”, “fossil corals”, and “worm casts”. The geological issues aside, I found the complexity (there are a number of different images contained in this one engraving), color, and the found-design to be all very captivating, especially appearing four decades before the invention of the Absurd.  

Notes:

1.  Philosophical Magazine, 5th Series, New Series I, March, 1876.

2.  “Serpentinite is a rock composed of one or more serpentine group minerals. Minerals in this group are formed by serpentinization, a hydration and metamorphic transformation of ultramafic rock from the Earth’s mantle. Themineral alteration is particularly important at the sea floor at tectonic plate boundaries. Serpentinization is a geological low-temperature metamorphic process involving heat and water in which low-silica mafic and ultramafic rocks are oxidized (anaerobic oxidation of Fe²⁺ by the protons of water leading to the formation of H₂) and hydrolyzed with water into serpentinite.”–Wikipedia