The Real McKay: The Remarkable Life of Alexander McKay, Geologist

Geologists all over New Zealand have long acknowledged Alexander McKay as a major figure in their field. No one trudged more widely over the terrain, no one collected more samples, no one produced more publications. And he is a folk hero, the explorer who liked whisky in his porridge and wrote epic poems! McKay was a self-educated Scots immigrant who rose to the position of Government Geologist. He was a key figure in laying the foundations for the high reputation New Zealand geological science enjoys internationally today. And he was a pioneer of the telephoto lens and photomicroscopy, grinding his own lenses from bottle ends. McKays story has now been told for the first time in a biography "The Real McKay" by Otago geologist and writer Graham Bishop. Here we learn that McKays documentation of horizontal movement during the Glynn Wye earthquake of 1889, graphically illustrated by his photograph of an offset fence, won him a place in the history of geological science. His ideas about mountain-building laid the foundations for advanced thinking by the next generation of geologists. The new discipline of neo-tectonics (the nature, rate and scale of dynamic earth processes) is based upon the observations and theories of Alexander McKay. J A Thomson described him as "one of the greatest original thinkers that New Zealand in her brief career has ever seen". Audacious, opinionated, exuberant, argumentative, and whisky-drinking -- McKay was all of those, but not all of the time. He was the author of 201 publications totalling 3000 pages, averaging six reports per year as a professional geologist committed to scrupulous observation, description, and deduction. His success came about through a physical and mental determination to explore the significance of what he saw. An early Professor of Geology at Otago University, James Park, believed that "McKay stands by himself as the greatest exponent of New Zealand geology ...His mind moved in two compartments -- one devoted to the cold facts of science, the other crowded with images of the past and tales of adventure".

About the Author :
As Regional Geologist with the New Zealand Geological Survey, Graham Bishop spent much of his career in the footsteps of Alexander McKay, who always seemed to have been there first, notably in Fiordland, the Routeburn and Matukituki and South and Central Otago. He has a strong interest in environmental issues, and has been a member of the Mt Aspiring National Park Board and the Kawarau River Conservation Tribunal.. Formerly a leading mountaineer, he still enjoys walking and visiting the mountains when possible. As well as many scientific papers and much non-fiction, he has written poetry and fiction. This is his seventh book.