Prof Samuel James Shand (1882–1957) was a British mineralogist and petrologist, specialising in silicate analysis and igneous petrology.

Life

He was born in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

on 29 October 1882 the son of James Shand (1851–1929), originally from

Sandsting Sandsting is a parish in the West Mainland of Shetland, Scotland, forming a southern arm of the Walls Peninsula. After the parish of Aithsting was annexed into Sandsting in the sixteenth century, it became known as Sandsting and Aithsting par ...

in Shetland, and Catherine Grant Hunter from

Lerwick Lerwick (; non, Leirvik; nrn, Larvik) is the main town and port of the Shetland archipelago, Scotland. Shetland's only burgh, Lerwick had a population of about 7,000 residents in 2010. Centred off the north coast of the Scottish mainland a ...

in Shetland. In 1881 the family had moved from Shetland to Taap Hall, a curious Georgian tenement on Ferry Road in the

Leith Leith (; gd, Lìte) is a port area in the north of the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, founded at the mouth of the Water of Leith. In 2021, it was ranked by ''Time Out'' as one of the top five neighbourhoods to live in the world. The earliest ...

district. However they moved to "Selivoe" on Park Road in the Newhaven district and James was born there. Shand received his secondary education at

George Watson's College George Watson's College is a co-educational independent day school in Scotland, situated on Colinton Road, in the Merchiston area of Edinburgh. It was first established as a hospital school in 1741, became a day school in 1871, and was merge ...

, Edinburgh, and then in 1905 received his BSc in science from University College, Dundee, which from 1897 to 1967 was part of the

University of St Andrews (Aien aristeuein) , motto_lang = grc , mottoeng = Ever to ExcelorEver to be the Best , established = , type = Public research university Ancient university , endowment ...

. He then became a graduate student at the

University of Münster The University of Münster (german: Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, WWU) is a public research university located in the city of Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. With more than 43,000 students and over 120 fields of stud ...

and received a PhD (

Promotion Promotion may refer to: Marketing * Promotion (marketing), one of the four marketing mix elements, comprising any type of marketing communication used to inform or persuade target audiences of the relative merits of a product, service, brand or i ...

) there in 1906 with thesis advisor . Upon Shand's return to Scotland, he became an assistant curator in charge of the geological collections at the

Royal Scottish Museum The National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, Scotland, was formed in 2006 with the merger of the new Museum of Scotland, with collections relating to Scottish antiquities, culture and history, and the adjacent Royal Scottish Museum (opened in ...

in Edinburgh from 1907 to 1911. He received a D.Sc. from the University of St Andrews in 1910. Shand became in 1911 professor of geology and mineralogy at

Victoria College, Stellenbosch Stellenbosch University ( af, Universiteit Stellenbosch) is a public research university situated in Stellenbosch, a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Stellenbosch is the oldest university in South Africa and the oldest extant ...

(which was renamed

Stellenbosch University Stellenbosch University ( af, Universiteit Stellenbosch) is a public research university situated in Stellenbosch, a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Stellenbosch is the oldest university in South Africa and the oldest extant ...

in 1918). During WWI he served in the Royal Engineers as a lieutenant, helping to find water resources for the British army in the Middle East. Shand established the geology department of Stellenbosch University and published approximately 30 papers on various aspects of the geology and mineralogy of southern Africa. In 1914 he presented fossils from the

Bokkeveld Group The Bokkeveld Group is the second of the three main subdivisions of the Cape Supergroup in South Africa. It overlies the Table Mountain Group and underlies the Witteberg Group. The Bokkeveld Group rocks are considered to range between Lower Dev ...

and a collection of rocks to the McGregor Museum in Kimberley. Shand discovered, among rock specimens sent to him by P. H. S. de Wet in 1913,

pseudotachylyte Pseudotachylyte (sometimes written as pseudotachylite) is an extremely fine-grained to glassy, dark, cohesive rock occurring as veinsTrouw, R.A.J., C.W. Passchier, and D.J. Wiersma (2010) ''Atlas of Mylonites- and related microstructures.'' Spring ...

, which, in 1916, Shand was the first to scientifically describe. Shand resigned in 1937 from Stellenbosch University to become a professor of petrology at Columbia University, remaining there until his retirement in 1950 when he returned to Scotland. In retirement he helped to reorganise some of the same museum collections in Edinburgh that he worked on forty years earlier. He was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...

in 1952. His proposers were Sir

Edward Battersby Bailey Sir Edward Battersby Bailey FRS FRSE MC CB LLD (1 July 1881 – 19 March 1965) was an English geologist. Life Bailey was born in Marden, Kent, the son of Dr James Battersby Bailey and Louise Florence Carr. He was educated at Kendal grammar ...

, Robert Campbell,

Douglas Allan Douglas Alexander Allan, CBE, FRSGS, FRSE, FMA (28 January 1896 – 30 July 1967) was a geologist and curator, eventually becoming the director of the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh, from 1945 until 1961. Early life Born in Edinburgh in ...

and

Archibald Gordon MacGregor Dr Archibald Gordon MacGregor MC FRSE FGS (1894-19 December 1986) was a 20th century geologist of Scots descent. He was Assistant Director of the British Geological Survey. Friends knew him as Archie MacGregor. Life He was born in Halifax, Nova ...

. His parents had moved to

Broughty Ferry Broughty Ferry (; Scottish Gaelic: ''Bruach Tatha''; Scots: ''Brochtie'') is a suburb of Dundee, Scotland. It is situated four miles east of the city centre on the north bank of the Firth of Tay. The area was a separate burgh from 1864 until 191 ...

near Dundee and recreated a family home there. He died at 1 Fintry Place in Broughty Ferry on 11 April 1957.

Family

In 1913 he married Anna Davidson (d.1947). He was younger brother to Dr John Glendinning Bryden Shand who moved to

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated pop ...

Shand's definition of alkaline rock

The

alkali In chemistry, an alkali (; from ar, القلوي, al-qaly, lit=ashes of the saltwort) is a basic, ionic salt of an alkali metal or an alkaline earth metal. An alkali can also be defined as a base that dissolves in water. A solution of ...

es Na₂O and K₂O are present in varying amounts among alkaline rocks, and petrologists disagree on the precise definition of the term "alkaline rock". Shand (1922) Shand (1943) also defined a ''peralkalinity index''.

Awards and honours

Shand was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the

Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland began in 1876. Its main purpose is to disseminate scientific knowledge of the Mineral Sciences (mineralogy) as it may be applied to the fields of crystallography, geochemistry, petrology, envi ...

, and the

Geological Society of London The Geological Society of London, known commonly as the Geological Society, is a learned society based in the United Kingdom. It is the oldest national geological society in the world and the largest in Europe with more than 12,000 Fellows. Fe ...

, which awarded him in 1950 its Lyell Medal. He was for the year 1923 the president of the

Geological Society of South Africa The Geological Society of South Africa (GSSA) is a learned society for geological science that was founded in 1895, making it one of the oldest such societies in Africa. The GSSA publishes the peer-reviewed scientific journal, the ''South Africa ...

, which awarded him in 1937 its Draper Memorial Medal. The mineral

shandite Shandite is a sulfide mineral with chemical formula: Ni3Pb2S2. It was discovered in 1948 by the German mineralogist Paul Raumdohr who named it named after Scottish petrologist, Samuel James Shand (1882–1957). Ramdohr characterized shandit ...

, a lead-nickel-sulfide occurring in the

serpentine subgroup Serpentine subgroup (part of the kaolinite-serpentine group in the category of phyllosilicates) are greenish, brownish, or spotted minerals commonly found in serpentinite. They are used as a source of magnesium and asbestos, and as decorative ...

, was discovered and named in his honour by Paul Ramdohr in 1950.

Selected publications

Articles

* * * * * *

Books

*; rev. & enlarged 3rd ed. 1959 *; rev. & enlarged 2nd ed. 1937 * ; 4th ed. 1951

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shand, Samuel James 1882 births 1957 deaths People educated at George Watson's College Alumni of the University of St Andrews Alumni of the University of Dundee University of Münster alumni Stellenbosch University faculty Columbia University faculty 20th-century British geologists British mineralogists Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Lyell Medal winners Presidents of the Geological Society of South Africa