Doctor Who_ Camera Obscura - Lloyd Rose [26]
A red and white striped hot air balloon bobbed up under the glass ceiling. In niches in baroque facades, automatons draped in carved faux-Grecian robes turned and stiffly raised their arms, like figures Anji had seen on ancient cathedral clocks. Illustrated show cloths promised wonders for only a few pence. Anji and Fitz found themselves stuck in front of one depicting a four-tusked woolly mammoth trampling a hapless and very tiny Neolithic hunter. An elaborately lettered sign proclaimed that within was to be found the thigh bone of the prehistoric behemoth.
‘What twaddle!’ said an aggrieved voice to their right. It came from a dark-haired young man about Fitz’s age in a light grey summer suit and straw boater. Despite this casual attire, he had a scholarly look about him, though this was somewhat obscured by his scowl. ‘Utter rubbish. The proportions are all wrong. That hunter fellow doesn’t look as if he’d come up to the animal’s knee – if it had knees, which it doesn’t seem to. And where did anyone get the idea a mammoth has four tusks? They’ve confused it with a mastodon.’
‘What’s inside then?’ said Fitz curiously.
Their companion snorted. ‘An ordinary elephant’s thigh bone, if you’re lucky. If you’re not, the femur of an ox. It’ll be set up at a distance in a black velvet-lined box and carefully lit so you can’t tell its exact size.’
‘You seem to know a lot about it,’ said Anji.
‘Oh, I always visit these shows. Hoping, you know, I’ll find someone has unearthed a genuine fossil. It irritates me, though, how bally inaccurate they are.’
‘Are you a palaeontologist?’ asked Anji.
‘Geologist, actually.’ The man offered each of them his hand in turn. ‘George Williamson.’ As they gave their names, he fished in his pocket and found a card. ‘I end up learning a lot about fossils because, combined with the various strata of rock, they give us a dynamic picture of the earth’s history as progressive, not static and created all at once.’
‘Right,’ said Fitz. ‘Evolution.’
‘Yes.’ George’s face lit up. ‘You’re a student, then?’
‘Well, have been,’ said Fitz hesitantly, wondering how far his fourth-form science classes were going to carry him in this discussion. He’d always rather liked fossils, though, and had tended to pay attention during lessons about them. He wished he could remember when Darwin published that book of his, the one that caused all the fuss.
‘There is so much happening now,’ Williamson continued enthusiastically. ‘So many old theories challenged. And it’s past time! It’s been almost a quarter of a century since Lyall, yet there’s still resistance to the evidence that God did not create the world in seven days.’
‘Well, of course not,’ said Fitz. Williamson seemed surprised and impressed at his casual tone.
‘Actually, I’m giving a small talk at the Olympia Hall in Islington this evening about an upcoming expedition to Siberia. There’ll be mammoth bones there, I can tell you! Seven o’clock. That is,’ Williamson suddenly seemed abashed at his boldness, ‘if you think you might be interested. Delighted to see you if you are. Cheerio.’ And he pushed away into the crowd. Fitz looked at the card Williamson had handed him. It was printed with the geologist’s name and an address in Bloomsbury.
‘Might be interesting. I’ve always wondered how those arctic explorer blokes in this century managed with just dogs.’
‘Not very well, as I recall,’ said Anji. ‘The names Scott and Sir John Franklin come to mind. I don’t think the mammoth bone is worth our tuppence, do you?’
‘Definitely not. Let’s see what else is on offer.’
They passed a long row of little coin-operated machines, prettily wrought In curving iron, their windows showing various scenes. For a ha’penny they could watch a mechanical hand raise a hammer and bring it down on an anvil. For a penny, they were treated to